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FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY. 



BY THE REV. T. L. CUYLER, 



■oo^^c 



L POINTED PAPERS FOR THE CHRISTIAN 

LIFE. i2mo $1.50 

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III. FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY AND 

HOMEWARD. Illustrated ' . $1.50 

IV. THE EMPTY CRIB. Gilt edges .... $1.00 

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ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
New York. 




Nile to Norway. 



RICHARD COEUR-DE-LION 

and the 
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER. 

FRONTISPIECE. 



FROM 


The Nile to Nor^way 


AND HOMEWARD 


BY 


THEODORE L. CUYLER 


PASTOR OF LAFAYK-rrE AVENUE CHURCH, BROOKLYN 


V ^^ 


^s 


NEW YORK 


ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS 


530 Broadway 


1882 



Copyright, 1 88 1, 
By Robert Carter & Brothers. 



THE LIBRARY 
or COMGRESS 

WASHINGTON 






Cambridge: 

PRESS OF 
JOHN WILSON AND SON. 



ST. JOHNLAND 

STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 

SUFFOLK CO.. N. Y. 



Nile 



TO 

THE BELOVED FLOCK 

WHOSE GENEROUS KINDNESS SENT ME ON THIS TOUR 
THIS VOLUME IS 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. 

I. OUTWARD BOUND 



n. THROUGH ENGLAND AND FRANCE . 
in. CRUISING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 
lY. THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS 
V. LIFE IN CAIRO 
VI. LAST YIEWS IN EGYPT. 
Yn. TO THE HOLY LAND 
Yin. WALKS ABOUT JERUSALEM . 
IX. THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN 
X. THE OLD AND THE NEW 
XI. BEYROUT AND THE SYRIAN MISSIONS 

Xn. OHIO ^AND A YISIT TO EPHESUS . 

Xm. ON THE BOSPHORUS 
XIY. ATHENS ..... 
XY. SUNRISE ON THE PARTHENON . 
XYI. FROM ATHENS TO THE TYROL 

XYn. PRAGUE DRESDEN. 

XYm. THE LAND OF LUTHER 
XIX. HAMBURG TO COPENHAGEN 
XX. THE CITY OF THORWALDSEN. 



PAGE. 

. 9 

19 

. 27 

43 

. 55 

65 

. 78 

87 

. 97 

108 

. 127 

139 

. 149 

160 

. 171 

181 

. 191 

201 

, 210 

219 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE. 

XXI. NOKWAY. . . . . . . . 2'27 

XXn. STOCKHOLM 239 

XXIII. THE WARM HEARTS OF SWEDEN . . . 249 

XXIV. THE GREENTH OE ENGLAND. ... 262 
XXV. DRIVES ABOUT LONDON 271 

XXVI. CAMBRIDGE THE SAVOY MR. SPURGEON . 281 

XXVII. DEAN STANLEY 292 

XXVHL THE DRINK-QUESTION IN MANY LANDS . . 300 

XXIX. EXCURSIONS IN ENGLAND 313 

XXX. A RUN INTO WALES ..... 335 

XXXI. HOMEWARD ....... 345 



FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY. 



>>©<< 



OUTWARD BOUND, 

Near Queenstowrif April 2, 1881. 

TT was a raw March morning on which the 
-*" stout ship ^^ Bothnia'^ threw off her hnes, 
and a cutting wind smote in the faces of the 
kind friends who gave us a parting cheer 
from the Cunard wharf. The vessel also was 
very cold for a few hours, but when the 
steam warmed up her iron ribs, she became 
thoroughly comfortable. As we steamed 
down the Bay, the other passengers were 
busy in getting off letters for the pilot; but 
my eyes were held fast to the spire of 
Lafayette -avenue Church, and when that 
beautiful and beloved landmark dropped 
out of sight behind Greenwood, I went be- 
low, and felt that the last link to home 



10 The Nile to Norway. 

was broken off. The russet hills of Staten 
Island slowly disappeared; then the paste- 
board palaces on Manhattan Beach; then we 
passed the light-ship, and were out on the 
great wide sea. 

It has not grown any narrower since I 
first crossed it in the packet-ship ''Patrick 
Henry ^^ thirty-eight years ago, when I was 
a college-youth; but steam has put a car- 
peted cabin across the waves in half the 
time. In those days the ^'Independence^' 
made a great run, under canvas, in fifteen 
days; but the average time was about twen- 
ty-five, except in winter; then old Boreas 
often boxed them about for forty days. 
The Bothnia is not famous for speed; but 
she is spacious, stout, and sociable. Cap- 
tain McMickan's genial face throws a sun- 
shine on her deck on the darkest morning, 
and Engineer Brown's violin can make the 
roughest night merry as a Christmas feast. 
We have four hundred and twenty feet for 
promenade, and a very genial company to 
keep step with in our daily walks. The 



Outward Bound. 11 

steamer runs as true as a clock, and hardly 
varied from three hundred and twenty miles 
a day after we left Sandy Hook. At the 
Captain's table we have General Richmond, 
Consul at Rome, Colonel Richard Lathers, 
the Hon. Mr. Maxwell, and several other 
good sailors, who put in an appearance at 
every meal. My kind friend Mr. Howard 
Gibb, a Broadway merchant, presided at the 
opposite table; for he has crossed so often 
in the Bothnia that he has the freedom of 
the ship. 

The most enjoyable time on board is the 
evening. Then-a party of us assemble in 
Purser Wallace's room, and the Captain tells 
his full share of the lively stories which keep 
the room in a roar. Later in the -evening 
we adjourn to the room of the chief engineer, 
Brown, who is a typical Scotchman, worthy 
of a place in one of Sir Walter's romances. 
Brown is not only a staunch Presbyterian, 
but a master of the violin; and the sight of 
him when he is pouring forth such old Scotch 
melodies as ''Bonnie Doon," "John Ander- 



12 The Nile to Norway. / 

son, my Jo/' and '' Come mider my plaidie/' 
reminds one of the ''Last MinstreP' when 
he played before the Duchess m old Brank- 
some Tower. He puts his whole soul into 
the instrument whether the strains be grave 
or gay. So popular are his performances 
that his cabin is packed, and some of the 
ladies are glad to join our party and enjoy 
these delightful " nichts wi' Burns.'' More 
than one of my clerical brethren have lively 
memories of the Scotch stories and strains 
of Highland melody in the cosy room of 
Engineer Brown. 

Last Sabbath was a day of storm. I fear 
that but few of our passengers greeted the 
morning with the familiar lines ''Welcome 
sweet day of rest^ The deck was spattered 
with the rain, and washed with the stray 
seas that combed over the bow. Only half 
the passengers were able to join with the 
Captain and crew at the morning service 
in the main saloon; even some of them beat 
a hasty retreat before the service was over. 
While the sailors were standing up to sing 



Outward Bound. 13 

the psalm to old ''Dundee/' they swung to 
and fro like pendulums; and while I was 
joreaching I had to hold on with both hands 
to the table. My theme was the '' four anch- 
ors '^ which Paul's shipmates threw out during 
the tempestuous voyage to Rome. Nowhere 
do the good tidings of the Gospel sound 
more gladsome than on a dark and stormy 
day; and no souls have welcomed this Gospel 
more heartily than the men of the sea. It 
is a real luxury to preach to the blue-jackets 
in Mr. Williams' chapel at our navy yard; 
a sailors' prayer-meeting is a model for free- 
dom and fervor. I trust that some fragments 
of divine truth may have been caught and 
retained by some of my auditors who held 
steadfastly to their seats in the uneasy cabin. 
One thing I feel sure of, and that is that 
no man ever preaches God's simple Word 
of life to even a handful of auditors without 
some results. No message faithfully spoken 
is left wholly unblest; no word returns to 
the divine Giver unless it have at least im- 
posed a new responsibility on the souls that 



14 The Nile to Norway. 

hear it. The old EngHsh Hturgy is the com- 
mon vehicle of devotion at all the services 
on these vessels; we all meet on the common 
ground of the Apostles^ Creed, the Psalter, 
and Chrysostom's sweet, simple prayer; and 
as staunch a Presbyterian as my Scotch 
friend, Mr. Hugh Stirling, could join in the 
responses as heartily as my Episcopal neigh- 
bor. Colonel Lathers. On shore I prefer 
voluntary extemporaneous devotions; at sea 
I can appreciate Professor Hitchcock^s argu- 
ments for a Book of Common Prayer. 

Many of the passengers, in spite of the 
uneasy sea, occupy themselves with read- 
ing; but in addition to guide-books, the 
only volume that I have looked into is 
Froude^s ''Reminiscences of Carlyle.^' It is 
wonderfully characteristic ; but the finest 
things in the book are his impassioned trib- 
utes to his ''bonny little Jeannie," who 
shone around his grim head like an aureola, 
and whose bright look turned everything to 
gold. Just imagine the grizzly old bear of 
savage criticism (who did not spare even 



Outward Bound. 15 

Dr. Chalmers) breaking out into such lovely 
outbursts as this: ''God reward thee, dear 
one ! now when I cannot even own my debt. 
Thanks, darling, for your shining words and 
acts, which were continual in my eyes, and 
in no other mortaFs. ! was it not beau- 
tiful, all this that I have lost forever ? ^^ 
Yes, it was beautiful ; and ten thousand 
harsh and rasping utterances of Carlyle's 
pessimism can all be covered by the grace- 
ful mantle of his devoted, husbandly idolatry. 
Amid all the shams and '' simulacra ^^ of this 
degenerate world, the one bit of solid gold 
was the woman of his home and heart. We 
can forgive all the old growler ^s anathemas 
when we see him, at the age of fourscore, 
lying on the grave of his wife in Haddington 
kirk-yard, and kissing the turf that covered 
her. 

I have been surprised that we have sighted 
so few vessels during this passage — not more 
than one or two each day. The reason prob- 
ably is that the Cunard steamers have a 
track of their own, about fifty miles south 



16 The Nile to Norway. 

of the great thoroughfare to Liverpool. The 
traveUing pubhc can well afford to take the 
longest route, when it affords them such an 
additional guarantee of safety. Well has this 
veteran line earned its crown of supremacy 
for perfect discipline, staunch steamers, and 
preservation of every single human life that 
has been committed to its charge for forty- 
one years ! 

I began this letter four days ago, when 
the winds were prosperous and the stout 
ship was pushing finely toward the '^desired 
haven.'' But on Tuesday a savage head- 
wind took us by the throat, dashed the 
brine into our faces, and riled up the tem- 
pers of some of the passengers sadly. The 
rain and wind banished most of them from 
the deck and drove us down below to culti- 
vate the grace of patience. I found it nec- 
essary to go around and visit my parishioners 
and cheer them up with all those consola- 
tions which have become stereotyped at sea 
in rough weather. Thanks to a free use, 
every morning, of Saratoga water, and to 



Outward Bound. 17 

a careful diet, I have not been sea-sick. 
The traditional nonsense about warding off 
this dreaded malady by a hberal use of 
champagne or toddy, ought to be exploded. 
In this case, too, ^^wine is a mocker, and 
whoso is deceived thereby is not wise.'' A 
good aperient, light digestible food, and 
fresh air, are worth more than all the alco- 
hohc potations ever concocted. 

The horrible head-wind — -which has thrown 
us thirty hours behind time — ^has not relaxed 
its grasp ; but we are in sight of old Ireland 
— pride of all Irish patriots, prey of all Irish 
demagogues, and puzzle and plague of all 
English statesmen. The question now is 
whether she will allow Gladstone to help 
her out of her bottomless bog of difficulties. 
Patrick may well have a warm side for 
America ; but for the relief that emigration 
to us has given to her surplus crowds, and 
for the myriads of ^^ one-pound notes'' sent 
hither by servants to the old folks at home, 
the Irish peasantry would have starved out 
long ago. 



18 The Nile to Norway. 

Grateful is the sight of her emerald shores. 
This chill, moist atmosphere brings no scent 
of April on its wings. England, Rome, the 
Alps, Athens and the Orient — all lie hidden 
beyond that wall of thin mist which over- 
hangs the British Channel. May He who 
has brought us across the stormy sea, guide 
us through and beyond that veil, until our 
feet stand within thy gates, Jerusalem ! 



I 



11. 

THROUGH ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 

Marseilles^ France, April 7, 1881. 

]Sr all ages an east wind seems to have 
had a bad name. The Old Testament 



makes it a synonym for barrenness, and 
the New Testament a synonym for tempests; 
on the sea of Galilee it nearly wrecked the 
disciples, and on the Mediterranean, it hurled 
the Apostle Paul and his fellow -voyagers 
upon the beach among the broken fragments ' 
of their ship. The wind that took our 
steamer *^ Bothnia'' by the teeth off the 
southern coast of Ireland, belonged to this 
unamiable family. It would not even allow 
us to halt, and leave our mails at Queens- 
town. So the Captain threw up signal- 
rockets, and we buffeted our way on to- 
wards Tuskar light in the face of the gale. 
By morning it had blown itself out of 
its passion; the sea grew quieter, so that 

19 



20 The Nile to Norway. 

the cabin was well filled at the Sabbath 
service; we entered the mouth of the Mer- 
sey at night-fall in a calm, and anchored 
there for the next rise of the tide. It was 
no pleasant thing at Liverpool to part from 
a genial company of passengers who could 
warm the wintriest day and cheer the dark- 
est night in Lapland. Captain McMickan 
is a king on a quarter-deck. 

We set off immediately for London by 
the North Western Railway which passes 
through some of the finest counties of 
England. The farmers were busy with 
plough and harrow; I fancied also that I 
saw shrewd ^^Mrs. Poyser'' jogging along 
in her market-cart. It always thrills me, — 
when passing over this road — to look at 
the towers of Lichfield Cathedral in Dr. 
Johnson's early home, and at Lord Mar- 
mion's tower at Tamworth — and dear old 
Rugby School, famous for Dr. Arnold and 
Tom Brown — and at Berkhampstead, where 
Cowper first saw the light in the world he 
came to bless. We ran close to the hill 



Through England and France. 21 

of Harrow, from whose school went forth 
the wayward Byron, and the wise Sh-* Robert 
Peel. In five hours we were in roaring 
London. When I first saw London it con- 
tained two millions of people; now its utter- 
most limits contain four millions and a half. 
My beloved friend the Rev. Newman Hall 
was waiting to take me to his pleasant home 
on Hampstead Hill — a home once shadowed 
by peculiar trials, but now brightened with 
sweet domestic joys. 

In the evening I went to the prayer- 
meeting of his congregation at Christ Church 
Westminster Road. Their edifice, — with its 
lofty Lincoln Tower, and its adjoining Hawke- 
stone Hall — is more spacious and imposing 
than I had expected. The original founder 
of the church was Rowland- Hill, and the 
remains of that eccentric but devoted min- 
ister of the Word have lately been removed 
from old Surrey Chapel, and deposited under 
the vestibule of the Lincoln Tower. A tablet 
in commemoration of our Martyr President 
is inserted in the wall; the Tower itself was 



22 The Nile to Norway. 

erected by the joint contributions of the 
people of America and Britain. Mr. Hall 
took me up into the '^ Wilberforce Room'' 
and the ''Washington Room/' which are 
used for Bible-classes. On the wall of the 
latter hangs a copy of our Declaration of 
Independence. Christ Church seats about 
two thousand, and it is usually full. The 
prayer-meetings are held in the portion of 
the building called Hawkestone Hall; on 
Monday evening last a large company were 
gathered, and we had an animated season 
of hand-shaking afterward, for that congre- 
gation and my own have long had an ''evan- 
gelical alliance " on our own hook. Mr. Hall 
has a prodigious capacity for work, and on 
an average, delivers two or three discourses 
— over England — during every week, in ad- 
dition to the charge of his large congrega- 
tion, and its city-missions. After the deliv- 
ery of His Sunday evening discourse, he goes 
out and preaches to an audience in the street. 
As we drove back over Westminster bridge, 
the Thames embankment was ablaze with the 



Through England and France. 23 

new electric lights; and one also shone 
from the top of the tower of Westminster 
Palace to indicate that Payliament was in 
session. In fact while we were passing, Mr. 
Gladstone was just delivering his speech on 
the Budget to a crowd so dense that any 
attempt to get into the House of Commons 
were futile. The oratorical powers of the 
great Premier show no signs of decay; his 
campaign in Mid Lothian nearly two years 
ago may well be regarded as the grandest 
feat of pohtical oratory in this century. 
During the time that the dexterous Disraeli 
was astonishing the world with his juggleries, 
I often ventured the prediction, in public 
addresses, that Gladstone would again become 
the Premier of Great Britian. He owes his 
return to power very largely to the zealous 
support of the Presbyterians in Scotland, 
and the Nonconformists in England. 

My stay in London was very brief, as I 
hope to revisit it in July. On Tuesday even- 
ing I took my share of the tossing in the 
termagant Channel on board of the boat 



24 The Nile to Norway. 

for Calais. We reached Paris behind time 
and I hastened to the station for Marseilles. 
I had but a few moments at the station 
for conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell 
two faithful members of my church who are 
deeply interested in the evangelical move- 
ment now going on in Paris. Being desirous 
to see the most I could of them, I suggested 
that they should go through the ticket-door, 
and finish our talk in the car. The uni- 
formed gateman stopped them, as they had 
no tickets. I promptly said to him, *^Mes 
amis sont Americains. Vive la Republique." 
The man swung his hand enthusiastically 
and responded, ^^Vive la Republique ! " and 
passed them through in an instant. I have 
found the word American to be an *'open 
sesame '^ to more than one door in foreign 
lands. In every part of the world one can 
travel more pleasantly, and with more cer- 
tainty of kindness from both the high and 
the humble if he lets it be known that he 
is a citizen of the United States. Occasion- 
ally I have met an American (of the shoddy 



Through England and France. 25 

species), who was very anxious to conceal 
his nationahty — to the very great credit of 
his country. 

My journey to Marseilles was by the 
lightning -express, which brought me five 
hundred and thirty -six miles in thirteen 
hours, running time ! We ran through 
some of the most fertile and famous por- 
tions of La Belle France. From the car- 
window I saw ancient Dijon, the capital 
of Burgundy, the city of Charles the Bold 
and the birthplace of Bossuet. The door of 
the venerable cathedral was standing open, 
through which the great orator must have 
often passed in the days of his boyhood. 
We passed, quite too quickly, the his- 
toric reliques of Avignon, and the antique 
Aries with its Roman amphitheatre. The 
country was in all the glories of spring. At 
Dover, thirty-six hours ago, the trees were 
leafless. At Paris a faint touch of green 
began to appear. At Monteneau, the cher- 
ries and apricots were in full bloom. Above 
Lyons, the beautiful banks of the Saone were 



26 The Nile to Norway. 

gorgeous with verdure and flowers. Here at 
Marseilles, everlasting spring abides, and the 
air is soft and balmy. 

France is another land since that crowning 
mercy of Sedan. Never did a military defeat 
bring richer benefits to any land. The Ex- 
Empress cannot blind her eyes to the fact 
that France is vastly more happy, peaceful 
and prosperous under republican government 
than under the rule of her husband, the im- 
perial charlatan. Protestantism is awaken- 
ing to new life in many districts, and a 
new day is beginning to dawn upon the 
land of Coligny, and Lafayette and the Hu- 
guenots. The chief hindrance to the spread 
of Bible religion is the fact that so many of 
the thoughtful and cultivated classes asso- 
ciate the very name of Christianity, with 
the mummeries and priestcraft of ultramon- 
tane popery. Acute intellects in fleeing from 
superstition are carried over to infidelity; 
they make the transition too in almost ut- 
ter ignorance of the solid middle ground 
of evangelical faith. 



III. 

CRUISING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 

Bay of Naples, April 9. 

TT was quite tantalizing to be hurried away 
-^ so soon from beautiful Marseilles, which 
far surpassed my expectations. It is finely 
built, has 320,000 inhabitants, and a portion 
of it is Paris on a smaller scale. The Bourse 
would be a fine model for our public edi- 
fices. Of ancient cathedrals one sees a plenty 
in France; but the Cathedral of Marseilles 
is a new and magnificent structure in the 
Byzantine style. Perched on a lofty rock 
stands the *^ Notre Dame'^ — a church look- 
ing like a Gothic lighthouse;, spiritually, the 
light is as darkness. The glory of the city 
is the park and its surrounding chateaux 
on the lofty heights which overlook the 
Mediterranean for many a league. The rich 
merchants enjoy up there what they earn 
in the town below. 

27 



28 The Nile to Norway. 

"We steamed out of the harbor of beau- 
tiful Marseilles at twelve o^clock on Thurs- 
day. As everybody is coming away from the 
Orient at this season of the year, and no- 
body is going, the eastward-bound boats run 
empty. In the spacious first-class saloon of 
this large steamer I am to-day monarch of 
all I survey. I have thirty or forty state- 
rooms at my command. The polite steward, 
who jabbers French at me, devotes his ex- 
clusive labors to keeping my solitary room 
in order. He rings the bell for breakfast 
long and loud at 9 a. M., and for dinner at 5 
p. M.; and all this superfluous racket is made 
in order to summon one diminutive parson 
to the table. When there, I am supported 
on the right, by the captain — who wears 
three stars on his coat-collar — and on the 
left hand by the purser in his jaunty blue uni- 
form, but no stars at all. They rattle away in 
French, and leave me to my meals and my med- 
itations. The captain occasionally shies a bit 
of broken English at my head, and I fire back 
a small volley of equally broken French. 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 29 

While I am quite alone in the first cabin, 
there are seven passengers in the second 
cabin — whose accommodations are just as 
good but not quite as shoAvy as in the first. 
One of these is a very genial Welshman, 
Mr. Humphrey Jones, who is going on com- 
mercial business to Alexandria. / There are 
two French Jesuit priests on board, who 
^^ having no place'' in France, are bound 
for Cairo and Abyssinia on a mission to 
the natives. They are bright cheerful fel- 
lows (whose adopted names since they were 
admitted to the ''Society of Jesus,'' I have 
not learned), and they are very constant in 
the study of their guide-books. The younger 
one is handsome, affable, and looks as if 
he could not twist a thumb-screw, if he had 
one. They are picking up English, and are 
very much inclined to be sociable. I could 
not but pity the poor wifeless homeless crea- 
tures as they go roaming around the world 
on their embassies of craft, at the bidding 
of their ecclesiastical superior. 

For two days we have enjoyed the poetry 



30 The Nile to Norway. 

of voyaging over a sea as smooth as New 
York harbor, and m view of shores that 
were famous in the days of Csesar and Vir- 
gil. Yesterday morning I looked out of my 
window — or ^' port '^ more properly- — and saw 
the villages and mountains of the island of 
Corsica. Snow-clad peaks crowned the cen- 
tre of the island. On the southern end, in 
the town of Ajaccio, a man-child was born 
(in August, 1769), who was destined to turn 
this world upside down in his mad ambitions. 
This whole region was vivid with memories 
of Napoleon. The afternoon previous we 
had sailed past Toulon, where in his youth 
he had learned how to blow his fellow-men 
into eternity from the mouth of a cannon. 
The artillery practice he learned at Toulon, 
he perfected at Austerlitz and Jena. Soon 
after leaving Corsica, we ran close in by a 
wild volcanic island on whose mountain-sides 
were a few scattered vineyards. That bleak 
and desolate spot was the famous Elba, to 
which the man of blood was banished in 
1814. What fools the Allies were to suppose 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 31 

that they could keep the Minotaur chained 
up on the island which was almost in sight 
of France. The bleak cliffs of Elba wore 
an aspect to me of sullen gloom, as if the 
portentous shadows of Waterloo were still 
brooding over them. 

What a blessed thing for France it is 
that the last bubble of Bonapartism has ex- 
ploded, and the race has run out forever ! 
One thing is pretty certain, there can be 
no more revival of the Napoleon dynasty, 
and no more tricks played under the dis- 
guise of the famous cocked hat and gray 
riding-coat. France has got a taste of the 
cup of constitutional liberty, and she is not 
likely to return to a wallowing in the mire 
of Imperialism. Great advance is being 
made in popular education." Railways are 
bringing new ideas into the rustic secluded 
regions. The press is free. Best of all, the 
buried roots of Protestant Christianity are 
beginning to sprout up again into a new 
life — to be nourished and watered by the 
zeal and the prayers of such men as McAU 



32 The Nile to Norway. 

and Fisch and Reveillaud. Our brother, Dr. 
Hitchcock, is doing his full share in this 
noble work — and has well earned the holi- 
day vacation he is about to take in America. 
Give him the welcome he deserves. 

All day we ran from Corsica southward 
through a succession of picturesque islands. 
Nearly every one bore marks of volcanic 
origin. Some contained nothing visible but 
a single lighthouse. Others were sprinkled 
with a few houses and vineyards. One of 
them showed a town with church-towers, and 
sails in its tiny harbor.. They lie along the 
great pathways of war and commerce since 
the days of Hannibal, and the times when 
the Roman galleys went off through these 
seas to the conquest of the East. Yet they 
are almost unknown to the busy world of 
these days, which still sails past them and 
leaves their fishermen and vine-dressers to 
their primitive seclusions. 

Thus far I am very much pleased with 
this route to Egypt. The steamer ^^Moeris^^ 
is one of the fleet belonging to the " Mes- 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 33 

sageries Maritimes/' a French company who 
are the Canards of the Mediterranean. Their 
boats are excellent in all their appointments, 
well manned, with large state-rooms and 
every luxury with which the leviathan of 
sea-life is tamed and domesticated. They 
leave Marseilles on every Thursday, and 
reach Alexandria in six days. This is a 
preferable route, on some accounts, to the 
one by Brindisi. It affords a view of some 
of the finest scenery of the Mediterranean, 
and avoids the stupid journey down the east 
side of Italy. A halt is also made for six 
hours in the peerless Bay of Naples. From 
that point we head southward to the Straits 
of Messina, run in sight of Stromboli and 
Mount ^tna, and take the track of the great 
Apostle on his way to Rome. Yesterday 
we were on the pathway of Napoleon; to- 
day we are on the track of Paul. God 
never created two more richly endowed 
men than they; but in the last great day 
of reckoning, oh what a difference ! 

We are approaching Naples. Old Vesu- 



34 The Nile to Norway. 

vius keeps his signal-fires blazing — except 
while his wrath smoulders within his ribs, 
and sends out a sullen smoke. His crest 
looked down on Paul the prisoner when he 
landed at yonder Puteoli and was led away 
towards Rome. Through what changes have 
I passed in a single week ! Six days ago 
on the cold, stormy Atlantic; since then, 
Liverpool, the hedgerows of England, Lon- 
don, Paris, the orchards and vineyards of 
sunny France, the distant glimpses of the 
Alps, the islands of the Mediterranean, and 
now in the morning light Naples opens her 
Gate Beautiful to give us welcome ! Like 
the old voyager of eighteen centuries ago 
when he landed here, let us ^^ thank God 
and take courage.'^ 

April 13. 

The tourist who wishes to preserve the 
aesthetic illusion which overhangs Naples had 
better remain on board, and not venture on 
shore; the man must have studied the city 
from the water who first said, ^^See Naples, 
and then die.^^ Having never seen it, I de- 



^k 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 35 

cided to make the venture, especially as so 
many m^gent invitations were shouted at me 
from every side. 

As soon as we had tied up to the buoy 
in the magnificent harbor, we were sur- 
rounded by a swarm of clumsy little boats, 
filled with that indescribable class of hu- 
manity called the '' lazzaroni.'' ^'Dese are 
vot you call de vagabonds ^^^ said the Neapol- 
itan guide to me as we pulled off for the 
shore. In the same boat with us were the 
two Jesuits, and a flap-hatted nun, who left ^ 
us at Naples. The Jesuits went on shore 
to pay their respects to the Archbishop 
and to attend the service of mass. 

As soon as we landed I pushed in among 
the narrow, crowded, filthy streets, not over 
a dozen feet wide, and blocked up with 
swarms of men, women, children, and don- 
keys. Not one of the rabble looked as if 
he, she, or it had ever seen a square inch 
of soap. They were a vagrant mass of un- 
mitigated nastiness. How the creatures live 
is a mystery; but cheap fruits and maccaroni 



36 The Nile to Norway. 

constitute their chief subsistence at a cost 
of a sixpence a day. Emerging from these 
narrow gangways I reached the Corso To- 
ledo, which is the principal street of Naples. 
Thence I went on to the Santo Carlo Opera 
House and the Royal Palace. This latter 
superfluity is only used now when Hum- 
bert, the king of united Italy, pays a 
visit to his southern territory. It used to 
be the residence of the villainous King 
Bomba; and up on the hill above stands 
the ancient Castle of San Remo, which he 
used as a Bastile, and which Garibaldi broke 
open to the daylight. Beyond the Palace 
I came down to the handsome street which 
faces on the bay, and is lined with the prin- 
cipal hotels. This part of the city is modern, 
and comparatively clean. 

Naples does not compare with Marseilles 
for architectural beauty. None of its two 
hundred and sixty churches is remarkable 
for anything but gilded and frescoed ceil- 
ings, pictures by the square rod, and crowds 
of ill-clad worshippers. It is the paradise 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 37 

/ of Popery, with swarms of idle priests, who 
lord it over an idle populace. When the 
millennium comes, Naples will be one of the 
last to yield to the gospel. 

But from the steamer's deck the city was 
brilliant with color and picturesque forms. 
It stretched before us like a crescent, with 
its hills crowned with villas and pines; at 
either extreme were Posillippo with its cav- 
ern, and Sorrento with its vineyards and 
ohves. I sat on the deck for three hours, 
and feasted on the magnificent panorama. 
The beauty of the whole was wonderful — ■ 
the dirt of the details was invisible from 
that distance. Yesuvius curled up his lan- 
guid smoke gracefully to the clouds. Pom- 
peii — which must have been a cultured Sod- 
om in its obscenity and idolatries — lies at 
its southern base. Capri lifted its rocky 
crest out of the smooth sea. 

We enjoyed this peerless panorama un- 
til two o'clock, and then the last of the 
lazzaroni pulled off in his clumsy boat, 
we hoisted anchor, and steamed down the 



38 The Nile to Norway. 

Bay. In an hour we were abreast of the 
island of Capri, where the Emperor Tiberius 
liad his palace and his revelries. Away off 
to the northeast we could dimly discern Pu- 
teoli, the spot on which Paul set foot when 
he was greeted by the brethren, who be- 
sought him to tarry with them seven days. 
We were now fairly upon the great Apostle's 
track. 

During the evening we passed Stromboli, 
the dull red glare of whose volcano is visible 
for many leagues. Yesuvius commonly emits 
but a faint flame; Stromboli seems to have 
a larger supply of fuel. On Sabbath morn- 
ing we were running close to the coast of 
Calabria, and the '^Rhegium,'' toward which 
Paul's captain ''fetched his compass,'' was on 
our left. The coast is rocky, but here and 
there small towns nestle among the cliffs 
and the stretch of faint green slopes. Then 
we passed between Scylla and Charybdis, 
and the shores of Sicily appeared on our 
right. It was too misty to catch a glimpse 
of Mount jEtna, although its crest rises above 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 39 

ten thousand feet. A little to the south of 
it hes old historic Syracuse, where Archi- 
medes first cried ^' Eureka!^' where Athens 
fought her great naval fight, and where 
Paul landed and tarried for three days. It 
was a source of real regret to me that the 
steamers of this line do not take Malta in 
their way. We were intensely anxious to 
see the island on which Paul and his ship- 
wrecked fellow- voyagers escaped safe to land, 
some on boards and some on broken pieces 
of the ship. The spot is now known as 
*^St. Paulas Harbor'' and the soundings at 
the present day correspond exactly to those 
which are described m the twenty-seventh 
chapter of the Acts. The monks of Malta 
pretend to show the cavern in which the 
Apostle found refuge. It is rather remark- 
able that they should not exhibit the origi- 
nal viper that fastened on his hand, well- 
preserved in a bottle of spirits. 

But, if we did not see the site of Paul's 
shipwreck, we had a small taste of his expe- 
rience. All the way from Puteoli we had 



40 The Nile to Norway. 

a gentle southerly breeze and tranquil seas, 
but soon after we entered the mouth of the 
Adriatic (or that part of the Mediterranean 
which was anciently called '^ Adria'^) a fierce 
east wind began to blow. If it was not as 
violent as- the '' Euroclydon/' it came from 
the same quarter. All day on Monday we 
were tossed *'up and down in Adria.'^ The 
seas ran so high that my half-dozen fellow- 
passengers were glad to betake themselves 
to their berths, and I experienced the only 
taste of genuine sea-sickness that I have suf- 
fered from since I left New York. The 
two Jesuit priests — who are on their way 
to Egypt to conduct some ecclesiastical di- 
plomacy on the Upper Nile — did not make 
their appearance on deck during the whole 
day. With some faint show of courage, I 
came to the dinner-table, with the captain 
and purser; but, after a few spoonfuls of 
soup, I was glad to retire to private life. 
Unless Paul had a miraculous preservation 
from sea-sickness, I will warrant that his 
heroic stomach had some terrible qualms 



Cruising in the Mediterranean. 41 

when lie was weathering through that four- 
teen days of tempest. His water-soaked bis- 
cuit must have gone down rather toughly, 
when I found it so difficult to manage dainty 
sou]3S, and broiled chickens, and oranges. 

Towards evening on Monday the east 
winds abated. We were ' ' sailing close by 
Crete/' over the very waters which the 
great Apostle traversed before the Eurocly- 
don burst forth in its fury. Although so 
close to the shore, we could only catch a 
faint view of the mountains of the island. 
^'Salmone'' is still the name cf the cape at 
the eastern end." Soon after midnight we 
sighted the lighthouse on the southern shore 
of the island, and as its twinkling lantern 
sunk down behind the waves we lost sight 
of the last spot that is identified with the 
old hero on our present route. We leave 
Cyprus far to the north; and, although ours 
is a "ship of Alexandria, '^ its sign is not 
"Castor and Pollux,'^ and it carries one 
Presbyterian parson and two popish priests, 
mstead of an apostle to the Gentiles. 



42 The Nile to Norway. 

Yesterday the sun came out brightly. We 
have been runnmg over seas that danced and 
sparkled m his rays. From the deck we can 
look out over the waters which were once 
traversed by the ships of Tyre, by the gal- 
leys of proud Rome, and by the fleets that 
brought the wealth of the Orient to Venice. 
All these are forgotten; but the world will 
always hallow the memory of that one old 
corn-ship, which was tossed about in these 
waves for many dark nights, and yet could 
not sink while it upheld the life of the glori- 
ous man who was yet to *^ stand before 
Caesar. '^ 



IV. 

THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS. 

Cairo, April 15. 

C^^^ Wednesday morning — our sixth from 
^-^ Marseilles — we came in sight of Pom- 
pey's Pillar and the tall lighthouse, which 
mark the site of Alexandria; but it lies so 
low on the sands that it seems to sleep on 
the surface of the sea. It gives one a keen 
thrill to see the" famous old city which was 
the scene of the exploits of Alexander the 
Great and Julius Caesar in ancient times, 
and of Napoleon and Lord Nelson in mod- 
ern times — the city in which the Septuagint 
was completed, and Origen and Cyril and 
Athanasius delved in theological lore. The 
Alexandria of to-day is a busy, bustling 
combination of all ages, customs, tongues 
and nationalities. In the same street you 
may see a Mohammedan mosque, a tasteful, 

43 



44 The Nile to Norway. 

Parisian-looking mansion, and an ^'American 
Bar-room '^ for the sale of juleps and sherry- 
cobblers ! The entrance to the harbor is 
picturesque. NapoleOxi's windmills on the 
sandy shore — still whirling briskly — and the 
tall pillar built by Pompey, the Roman pre- 
fect, are among the most conspicuous objects. 
We swung round the end of the breakwater, 
and shot in among some Egyptian war-ves- 
sels and the Khedive's large and superb 
steam-yacht, which is said to run over twen- 
ty miles an hour. 

Swarms of Arab boats put off to meet 
us — a half dozen boats to each passenger. 
I soon detected a crew of fellows on whose 
white tunics was embroidered ''Cook's Boat- 
men.'' I hailed them at once; Calipha Has- 
sein, their polite Arab captain, in blue gown 
and red tarboosh, took me in charge and 
pulled me away rapidly to the Custom House 
wharf. I was put through the passport and 
customs offices in a twinkling, and in twenty 
minutes from the time that I left the deck 
of the ''Moeris" I was snugly fixed in the 



The Land of the Pharaohs. 45 

Hotel d^Europe on the Great Square of Me- 
hemet All. Here let me say that I am 
travelmg through the East with Cook's tick- 
ets, and I find three good arguments for 
using them. They are economical, they 
insure prompt attention everywhere, and 
they save you often the vexation of buying 
tickets from railway and other officials who 
speak in unknown tongues. The senior 
Thomas Cook is an old friend and fellow- 
worker in the Temperance movement for 
twenty years. 

But what a sensation is the first half hour 
which an American spends in an Oriental 
city! The ^'Arabian Nights'' of our boy- 
hood are all reproduced before us. Here 
are the water-carriers and the cross-legged 
tailors, and the old turbaned Turk selling 
his shibooks; here is Fatima peering with 
her black eyes over the outlandish veil that 
hides her brown visage; and here is Aladdin 
himself, in blue gown and a jaunty, red sash 
twisted around his saucy head. Hundreds 
of costumes appear — no two exactly alike 



46 The Nile to Norway. 

— from an European suit, crowned by a 
red-tasseled fez cap, to a white - shirted 
Nubian, and so on to the identical garb 
that Abraham may have worn on the plains 
of Mamre. The streets, the markets, the 
bazaars are a perfect kaleidoscope of novel- 
ties and fun. Bunyan's '' Mr. Despondency '' 
could not have refrained from a laugh if 
he had seen that huge Arab in white robe 
and green turban, and with his bare, brown 
legs, as he trots briskly by on a donkey not 
three feet high. I did nothing but laugh 
while in the streets of Alexandria, and I do 
not expect to stop till I leave Cairo. It is 
enough to cure a chronic dyspeptic. 

I took the train for Cairo at two o'clock, 
and found it a very fair reproduction of 
English management in a land where a lo- 
comotive seems as much out of its lati- 
tude as a carqel in Broadway. I observed 
that the engine bore the mark ^* Stephen- 
son & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne.'' That was 
the early home of the celebrated Stephen- 
son, the father of modern railways. The 



The Land of the Pharaohs. 47 

train was largely occupied by Egyptians, 
and the third-class cars were a perfect 
menagerie of Nubians, Arabs, and every 
variety of people in every variety of outre 
costume. They were a merry crowd, laugh- 
ing, gabbling and smoking. The road runs 
through the Delta which is the garden of 
Egypt — producing at this season vast crops 
of barley, wheat, millet and various vege- 
tables of whose name and nature I have 
no idea. Palm-trees skirt the way, with 
long lines of tamarisk. Occasionally the 
minaret of a mosque came in sight across 
the broad fields — which are even more level 
than Long Island is about Rockaway and 
Jamaica. 

All the way to Cairo presented a series of 
charming pictures that to my .unpractised eye 
v/as a perpetual delight. Here was a group 
of peasant women filling their water-jars 
from one of the innumerable small canals; 
some walked off like Rebekahs in flowing 
robes with the jars upon their heads. Here 
was a buffalo slowly turning the water-wheels 



48 The Nile to Norway. 

that irrigate the level J&elds. Then came a 
procession of ambling camels, laden with 
enormous loads of green fodder: a grinning 
Arab boy perched on the load. Then trot- 
ted past a turbaned Copt, or a half dozen 
Arabs on their diminutive donkeys, each 
rider sitting as near the animaFs tail as 
possible without being *'left astern/^ Some 
respectable towns were passed, like Tantah 
and Birket es-Sab, each of which displays 
a flashy palace of the Khedive. But the 
most remarkable objects are the Arab vil- 
lages—mere agglomerations of mud-hovels, 
packed closely together, with apertures for 
the Fellaheen and their brown children to 
creep in. At a distance they looked like a 
lot of magnified prairie-dogs dodging into 
their holes. Around each of these rude vil- 
lages were a few date-palms, and often a 
small minaret rose above the heaps of mud. 
Yet these peasants were a happy, and often 
a fine, bright -looking class; all seemed to 
be busy with their primitive husbandries of 
ploughing, irrigating, driving their camels, 



The Land of the Pharaohs. 49 

or tending their small flocks of sheep and 
goats. We crossed both branches of the 
Nile, on fine iron bridges, and I felt like 
doffing my hat in reverence to this most 
venerable of all the rivers on the globe. 
If it was as muddy in the times of Moses, 
he must have needed a well-caulked ark of 
bulrushes. 

A magnificent moonlight flooded the domes 
and minarets of Cairo as we approached this 
wonderful city. At the station the large 
carryall of Shepheard's Hotel met the train, 
and we were driven through streets brilliant- 
ly lighted and among crowds of noisy donkey- 
drivers to the west side of Esbekeeyeh Park. 
This hotel — the rendezvous of English-speak- 
ing tourists — is an Oriental-looking establish- 
ment, with an interior garden filled with 
palms, figs, and pomegranates. One of the 
polite landlord's first salutations was, ''Ah. 
sir, I have seen your name in the New 
York Herald in a letter to Mons. Crosby.'^ 
How far those twain candles have thrown 
their beams ! 



50 The Nile to Norway. 

Yesterday was comfortable, although a week 
ago the ^* khamseen/' or sorocco, scorched 
Cah^o with a temperature of ninety-five. I 
expect some hot work before I get out of 
the Levant. My first step here was to look 
up my old friend General Batcheller, who 
is a member of the staff of Judges who 
preside in the court in yonder Palace of 
Justice. General Batcheller is the Ameri- 
can member of that tribunal. I was piloted 
to his residence, in the elegant modern quar- 
ter, by Ali Hassan, my donkey-sergeant, 
and one of the most voluble of the sons of 
Ishmael. He pointed with pride to a squad 
of donkeys, and said, "Yonder black donkey 
is de one you shall ride, sar; he be berry 
easy, and his name be Yankee Doodle 
Dandy.'' I suspect that the little brute 
changes his name to suit the nationality 
of his rider. Outside of Ireland there is 
nothing that can surpass the vivacious blar- 
ney of a Cairo dragoman or donkey-boy. 

In the afternoon General Batcheller drove 
me to the lofty citadel of Cairo (built by 



The Land of the Pharaohs. 51 

Saladin in 1160), which commands the finest 
view of the city and the Pyramids. Close 
by it is the superb mosque of Mohammed 
AH — whose pillars are of solid alabaster, and 
whose walls are faced with the same ma- 
terial. Some criticise this structure as too 
gorgeous, but as the light poured into the 
gilded dome through the stained glass, it 
seemed to my eye a perfect dream of Ori- 
ental poetry wrought in gold and alabaster. 
On our way through the crowded '^Moos- 
kee ^^ we met a wedding procession, headed 
by a band of music, and followed by a troop 
of Arab boys. The bride was hterally en- 
cased in a flashy suit of vermilion and silver 
— ^not an eyelash visible ! She was led by 
the hand under a crimson canopy, and an 
hour after we met the procession again, still 
'^toiling on'' through the crowded streets. 
Last evening the bridegroom set out on his 
march, with lamps and torches, to wed the 
young wife whom his eyes had never beheld ! 
lie had won her by bargains, and not by 
courtship. That picturesque procession going 



52 The Nile to Norway. 

forth to meet the bridegroom was but an 
other photographic scene from Scripture, 
such as pass before one every day in these 
ancient birth-lands of the Bible. After night- 
fall I set out on a stroll through Cairo and 
was struck with the quietness and good 
order of every part of the city which I 
traversed. It is said that a stranger can 
go anywhere at night without any danger 
of molestation; if he loses his way he has 
but to call one of the ubiquitous donkey- 
boys who will soon trot him back to his 
hotel. I saw no dram-shops filled with ca- 
rousers, and encountered no abandoned char- 
acters making night hideous with their har- 
lotries. If Cairo is infected with the ^^ social 
vice/^ it hides the leprosy from public view. 
Mohammedanism degrades woman in many 
ways, but it does not put her to the open 
shame which so shocks us in the thorough- 
fares of London or Liverpool or of too many 
towns in America. 

In front of the brightly lighted cafes I 
saw groups of smokers enjoying their cigar- 



Tpie Land of the Pharaohs. 53 

ettes, or languidly puffing their narguilehs. 
In some of the smaller cafes a story-teller 
was entertaining a group of listeners. The 
Arab is as fond of listening to marvellous 
tales as he was in the times when the ^^ Ara- 
bian Nights^ Entertainments '^ were composed. 
Even those stories themselves about '* Sin- 
bad" and about the ''Forty Thieves" are 
still eagerly welcomed. They will devour 
anything and everything that takes the form 
of a story. Sometimes one of our mission- 
aries drops in at a cafe, and tells the story 
of Joseph, or one of the parables of the ISTew 
Testament, and always finds a most respectful 
and attentive audience. This fact throws its 
side-light upon the genuineness of Scripture; 
for as the Oriental tastes of to-day are the 
same as in ancient times, it explains to us 
the frequency with which narratives and par- 
ables were used by the prophets and by the 
Divine Teacher himself. 

These first two days in Egypt have brought 
with them an excitement that scarcely al- 
lows me to quiet down to sleep. It seems 



54 The Nile to Norway. 

like an exhilarating dream that I am actually 
in the land of Moses, and the Pharaohs — 
that the turbid stream which I saw from the 
citadel to-day was grandfather Nile — and that 
these streets have echoed to the hoofs of 
Saladin's cavalry. We must make the most 
of such antiquities as Egypt now contains; 
for the Arabic art of to-day seems as inca- 
pable to reproduce such a structure as the 
Mosque of Sultan Hassein as it is to build 
another temple of Luxor, or to pile another 
Pyramid. 



V. 

LIFE IN CAIRO, 

Shephear&s Hotels Cairo, April 18. 

A FRIEND of mine, who had travelled 
-^^"^ widely over the world, said to me, 
'^ The most fascinating city on the globe is 
Cairo." If we except the peculiar charm 
which Jerusalem possesses for every Chris- 
tian heart, my friend was right in his esti- 
mate. I have been nearly a week in Cairo, 
and the excitement which its novel features 
produce is almost an intoxication. There are 
really several Cairos — as there are several na- 
tionahties among its 700,000. people. South- 
west of this spacious old hotel is the new 
or ^^ Ismaileeyeh" quarter. This is like 
Paris, a region of elegant modern residences. 
Here live the Jewish bankers, the mer- 
chants, the Europeans, and some of the 
rich Pashas. On every Friday afternoon 

55 



56 The Nile to Norway. 

(which is the Mussuhnan Sabbath) the fine 
equipages roll in from this quarter, many 
of them bearing the beautiful Circassian la- 
dies of the Pashas' harems, half veiled, and 
yet revealing bright eyes and lovely com- 
plexions. Before the carriage runs a nimble 
young Arab footman, in white tunic bound 
with an embroidered sash, and carrying a 
staff in his hand. The endurance of these 
graceful forerunners is wonderful; they will 
keep out of the way of a pair of horses on 
a round trot for several miles ! 

Yesterday afternoon his Royal Highness, 
the Khedive, drove by with a fine pair of 
dark bays, and his minister, Zuylfekah Pasha, 
by his side; behind him rode a half dozen 
guards in white uniforms. The Khedive 
looks about thirty, has a fine eye and clear 
olive complexion, and wore a light over- 
coat and red tarboosh, or fez ca]3. Moham- 
med TcAvfik is a less adventurous man than 
his father. Ismail, who abdicated two years 
ago; he is more under the control of Eng- 
land and France, who now hold Egypt's 



Life in Cairo. 57 

purse-strings. The Khedive is a man of 
good purposes, and I was glad to put my 
eye on the grandson of the great warrior, 
Ibraham Pasha, and — the successor of the 
Pharaohs. 

Every morning early, while the air is 
cool enough at this season for an overcoat, 
I love to sally off into the old narrow 
streets of Cairo, around the ^^Mooske,'' 
which look now just as they did in the 
*' Arabian Nights.'^ The streets are about 
twelve feet wide, some of them only seven 
or eight. As we pass through, old ^^Ali 
Baba '' meets us in a white turban, trotting 
along on a donkey; and **Fatima" steals 
by us wrapped in a black silk mantle, her 
eyes peeping out above her veil. A camel 
comes ambling through the -narrow streets, 
laden with a small stack of green clover; 

on him rides one of the Fellaheen, or farm- 
ers, from the other side of the Nile. Pres- 
ently a herd of goats push by us, followed 
Dy an old man in blue gown and white 
turban, who sings out a monotonous cry. 



58 The Nile to Norway. 

He is the milkman on his morning rounds; 
his customers come to their doors, and he 
halts and milks for them enough for their 
day^s supply. After him comes the water- 
carrier, with a goat-skin bag slung over his 
shoulders, filled with the precious fluid. 

Egypt is the joy of us teetotalers, for 
cold water is king. I have not seen scarcely 
a dram-shop, and nobody drunk. But water 
is everywhere— whether it be drawn up by 
a buffalo in water-wheels and poured over 
the thirsty fields, or whether it be carried 
in jars on women's heads, or sprinkled from 
goat-skin bags through the dusty streets, or 
whether it be drank eagerly from the beau- 
tiful public fountains in the thoroughfares. 
He is a public benefactor who erects a 
stately marble fountain to which ^^ who- 
ever is athirst may come and drink the 
water of life freely.'' Some of these foun- 
tains are so large that in the room above 
them a small Arab school is held. Every 
drop of water in Egypt comes from yonder 
Nile. It is rather low to-day, but the an- 



Life in Cairo. 59 

nual inundation will begin in June and reach 
its highest mark in September. Then it will 
sweep for seven miles across yonder fertile 
valley, until it reaches to the Pyramids and 
the Sphinx, and touches the yellow sands of 
the great Sahara. What a beautiful type 
of the Grospel is the abounding Mle, for 
wherever its delicious water does not come, 
all is left to desert and desolation. 

Last Friday I mounted my donkey, ^'Yan- 
kee Doodle Dandy'' (though I suspect the 
little beast bears another name when an 
Englishman rides him), and my Arab guide, 
Ali Hassan, took me to see the ''Dancing 
Dervishes.'' They are a small Persian sect, 
and their mosque is in the Helmeyeh, a nar- 
row street not far from the Citadel. These 
singular creatures perform their weekly lohirl 
or dance at two o'clock every Friday. I 
found about twenty -five of them seated 
around a small circular floor. Thev wore 
a tall brown hat — that looked like a flower- 
pot turned upside down — and long gowns of 
either brown, green, purple or black. An 



60 The Nile to Norway. 

old slieykh acted as a sort of marshal, and 
at his signal they arose and began to march 
around the ring, stopping to make a low 
bow when they reached the sacred prayer 
carpet. Presently they threw off their cloaks, 
stepped out hito the ring and began to whirl 
like tops. Each man stood mainly on his 
left foot, spread his arms out straight, shut 
his eyes and spun around at a rate that was 
perfectly astonishing. This whirl, or waltz, 
was accompanied by two flutes and a tam- 
bourine, in a small upper gallery. I timed 
them with my watch, and the fellows whirled, 
without becoming dizzy or dropping from 
vertigo, for full twelve minutes. While they 
were spinning, the skirts of their white robes 
stood out like umbrellas. The whole unique 
performance lasted about one hour, and the 
spectators left a small ^' backsheesh'^ with the 
doorkeeper. 

After this holy waltz — which is certainly 
more chaste and innocent than the same 
performance usually is in an American ball- 
room — we rode up to the famous Citadel. 



Life in Cairo. 61 

This stands on a lofty elevation, and was 
founded by the renowned old Saladin in the 
time of the Crusades. The view of Cairo 
and its minarets, and of the distant Pyramids 
toward sunset is one of the most ravishing 
in the world. It is a dream of Oriental 
poetry — made all the more glorious by the 
rosy tints of the clear Egyptian sky. Close 
by the Citadel stands the modern Mosque 
of Mohammed Ali, which is the pride and 
boast of all the Moslem realm. A descrip- 
tion of this gorgeous mosque with its lofty 
minarets, its columns and interior walls of 
alabaster, and its swinging lamps and colored 
windows is impossible. We entered its sa- 
cred precincts — after drawing on some clumsy 
slippers over our shoes — and enjoyed the 
study of its marvellous splendor, until we 
almost expected to see its famous old founder, 
Mohammed Ali, come out from his tomb in 
the corner, and bow toward Mecca for his 
evening devotions. Just outside the walls is 
the very spot where this old hero — the Na- 
poleon of the present dynasty — slew the Ma- 



62 The Nile to Norway. 

melukes in 1811, and established the throne 
on which his great-grandson, the present 
Khedive, now sits. He was the greatest 
man the Orient has produced during the 
present century, and it is a great pity that 
the European powers did not allow him to 
go on until he had overthrown the Sultan 
and cleared the ^'unspeakable Turk'' out of 
Europe. 

From the Citadel Ali Hassan takes me 
through the Bazaars which line the narrow 
picturesque streets of the old quarter of 
Cairo. 0, what a crowd of divers colors 
and tongues and nations — coal-black Nu- 
bians, brown Arabs, black-eyed Jews, red- 
capped Copts, turbaned Turks, Syrians and 
Franks, press and surge around us! In one 
bazaar gold and silver wares are made and 
sold. In another, slippers of various bright 
hues. In the Tunis bazaar we came upon 
a handsome young merchant seated in his 
stall selling slippers. He wore the most 
beautiful robes of rich yellow silk — -between 
a canary color and orange — that I have yet 



Life in Cairo. 63 

seen in Cairo. I told liim that if he would 
come to New York he would draw a thou- 
sand ladies around him in ten minutes. He 
laughed very heartily. Beside some of the 
dealers, their wives were sitting, closely 
veiled, but peeping out over their ''bur- 
kos^' and listening to the talk of then* hus- 
band to his customers. 

I am deeply indebted to the kindness of 
my old friend Greneral Batcheller, formerly 
of Saratoga, and now the American judge 
in the ^' Mixed Court, '^ which is composed 
of judges appointed by the English, Amer- 
ican, French, German, Itahan, Dutch, and 
Russian Grovernments. This Superior Court 
sits in the Palace of Justice and takes cog- 
nizance of all cases between various nation- 
alities, and of all suits against the Egyptian 

Grovernment. General B speaks very 

encouragingly of the rapid progress which 
Egypt is making in introducing political and 
social reforms. New ideas are pouring in; 
by and by comes the Gospel! 

Yesterday I enjoyed my visit to the Sun- 



64 The Nile to Norway. 

day scliool in the noble building of the Amer- 
ican Presbyterian Mission. It made my eyes 
water to see those bright groups of Coptic 
and Arab boys and girls — in such clean, 
tasteful dresses — rise up and repeat, in 
Arabic, the International Series of Lessons. 
They were reciting the same Scriptures 
which my own blessed and beloved school 
in Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, would re- 
peat in a few hours — as soon as the Sab- 
bath sun in its course reached our American 
skies. I made them a brief address, which 
was interpreted into Arabic, and I came 
away happy — and homesick, too. 



VI. 

LAST VIEWS IN EGYPT. 

Shepheard's JSbtel, CairOj April 21. 

I ^YERY hour brings some new object of 
•^^^ interest in this wonderful city — which 
is a microcosm of all lands, ages, and civiliza- 
tions. The camel which has just joassed my 
window is such an one as Moses rode here on 
the banks of the Nile in the time of the 
Pharaohs. Before the fine carriage of a 
Pasha that has just passed ran two lithe 
Arabs in white tunics, with embroidered 
sashes around their loins and staves in 
their hands; just so ran the- prophet Elijah 
before the chariot of King Ahab. Yonder 
woman, who is carrying a jar of water 
on her head, is like the woman of Sychar 
whom our Lord met beside the Samarian 
well. Nubians, Abyssinians, Greeks, Per- 
sians, Jews, and Englishmen mingle in the 

65 



66 The Nile to Norway. 

crowds that pass under city gates built eight 
hundred years ago. 

But a modern gas-lamp shines before this 
hotel, which is occupied by Britons and 
Americans. My friend General Batcheller 
called the other day to take me to the Pal- 
ace of Justice, in which he occupies a seat 
on the bench of the High Court, as the rep- 
resentative of America. On our way we 
walked through the beautiful Ezbekeeyeh 
Park and public gardens, in which I saw 
banyan-trees with their limbs sending down 
new trunks into the soil, and pomegranate- 
trees, and flowering figs, and flaming flow- 
er-beds of crimson and orange hues. The 
Palace was once occupied by the Khedive, 
and its rooms are gorgeous with chandeliers, 
gilding, and rich upholsteries. The court- 
room was much like that of the Supreme 
Court at Washington. When we entered, the 
Italian Judge was presiding, and beside him 
sat the Holland and Austrian judges and two 
Egyptians. An interpreter stood before the 
bench, and the case that was on was brought 



Hi 

5' 

3* 




Last Views in Egypt. 67 

by a Persian plaintiff. The business was 
conducted in Arabic. Some veiled women 
were sitting on the floor in the outer hall, 
waiting to be called as witnesses; and an 
Englishman stood by smoking a cigar. Amid 
such a mixture of nationalities I should hard- 
ly have been astonished if a newsboy had 
come into the vestibule and shouted '''Ere^s 
an extra Herald — another fire in Chicago ! '^ 
But the ancient predominates — and it is 
as unchanged as yonder Pyramids and the 
Sahara. On Monday I mounted my don- 
key, and with our ConsuFs ^'kawass'^ and 
Mr. Yandyke rode up to the venerable 
Mosque el Azhar, which is nine centuries 
old. In this picturesque old mosque is held 
the famous Mohammedan University, which 
contains, on an average, 10,000 students 
from the whole Orient. It is the Yatican 
of Moslemism. As the place is accounted 
too holy to be trodden by shoes, we were 
obliged to draw on a pair of chimsy slip- 
pers; but in the neighboring Mosque el Has- 
saneyn (in which a portion of the bodies of 



68 The Nile to Norway. 

two of Mahomet's grandsons are buried) we 
had to walk over the rich rugs in our stock- 
ings. The vast floor of the ^^Azhar^' pre- 
sents a remarkable spectacle. At least two 
thousand young men, in white turbans and 
blue gowns, were seated on the mats, study- 
ing algebra, or the Koran — each man swing- 
ing to and fro, and rattling away in Arabic, 
so that the building hummed like an im- 
mense bee-hive. In one part of the mosque 
persons were praying with their faces toward 
Mecca. In another part, a professor of the- 
ology was lecturing to a group of thirty or 
forty students gathered around him. Many 
of these are to be missionaries to the interior 
of Africa or elsewhere, for the old tree of 
Islam is not dead either at root or top. 
I observed in one separate room a class of 
blind students under instruction. These men 
will officiate at funerals and repeat the Koran 
as the procession moves through the streets. 
Last Sabbath was full of interest to me. 
At eight o'clock I went over to the noble 
building of the American Presbyterian Mis- 



Last Views in Egypt. 69 

sion to attend the Sabbath-school; the Cai- 
renes are early risers. What a dehghtful 
spectacle was that roomful of bright-eyed 
boys and girls; some of them in dress and 
complexion looking as if they might belong 
to that beloved school in Lafayette Avenue. 
The boys wore their red tarbooshes or fez 
caps, but the girls sat uncovered. Brother 
Watson was teaching the whole school, be- 
fore a blackboard, from the '' International 
Series '^ of lessons, and Miss Johnson (a 
teacher from Belmont County, Ohio,) had 
the especial charge of the girls. I ad- 
dressed them a few words, but it was not 
easy to speak through an interpreter; and I 
confess that the sight of that Sabbath-school, 
recalling home as it did to me, gave me 
rather a large ''lump in my throat/^ The 
main work of our Mission, here is to instruct 
the young, both on the Sabbath and during 
the week. Our day-schools number over one 
hundred and fifty scholars. Many of these 
are children of the Copts, who are an in- 
fluential class in Egypt; they furnish nearly 



70 The Nile to Norway. 

all the accountants, book-keepers, and post- 
masters, throughout the kingdom. 

I stepped m at half past nine to the Coptic 
Cathedral, which was well filled with a well- 
dressed assembly. Up in the double row 
of galleries the female worshippers were 
caged behind a lattice-work of metal, painted 
green. I am afraid that there would not be 
so many costly wardrobes in our Yankee 
churches if all the finery was hidden behind 
a brass screen. It was Palm Sunday in the 
Coptic calendar, and in the church and court 
in front were hundreds of boys waving palm- 
branches, and recalling the scene of our Lord^s 
entry into Jerusalem. The service was a 
mixture of Romish ritual and censer-swing- 
ing, and of Protestant preaching. I was 
very sorry that I was obliged to leave before 
Mr. Fostaille, the eloquent Coptic priest, 
mounted the pulpit. He is their most cele- 
brated preacher, and is quite evangelical. 

From the Cathedral I hastened back to 
our Mission building, where Dr. Lansing was 
preaching to a good congregation in Arabic. 



Last Views in Egypt. 71 

The men and women were separated by a 
crimson curtain three or four feet high. I 
was struck with the inteUigent countenances 
of Brother Lansing's auditors; he tells me that 
one of his church-members (a produce dealer) 
is an annual contributor of about seven hun- 
dred dollars to the Mission and its work ! 
That looms large alongside of the benevolent 
contributions of our average church-members 
at home. At eleven o'clock I preached to a 
congregation which embraced seven different 
nationalities; a few native converts who un- 
derstand English being present. The Mis- 
sion is under the direction of the ''L^nited 
Presbyterians/' and uses the Psalms of David 
in all their services. There is a '^ Presby- 
tery of Egypt " which embraces four central 
churches — at Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoora, 
and Assiout — and forty preaching stations. 
It numbers about eleven hundred communi- 
cants, mostly converts from the Coptic faith. 
A few Mohammedans have been converted, 
but the difficulties in reaching and moving 
the followers of the Prophet of Mecca are 



72 The Nile to Norway. 

as yet very great. Dr. Lansing informs me 
that the late meeting of their Presbytery, 
held at Fahyoom, was very pleasant; there 
were thirteen pastors and eleven elders pres- 
ent. Our polity seems to work very smooth- 
ly among these descendants of the very people 
who were the taskmasters of Israel thirty- 
seven centm^ies ago. Presbyterianism is like 
cold water — good for any latitude. 

The weather of Egypt is as peculiar as 
its landscape and its costumes. For the last 
five days it has been very cool; when the 
Khedive drove by our hotel on Sunday af- 
ternoon, I observed that he wore an overcoat 
buttoned up to his chin. The week before 
our arrival the thermometer — under the south 
wind or sorocco — stood at 95. The air is 
exceedingly clear and dry, and reminds me 
of a California Summer. Gen. Batcheller 
tells me that he has never known it to rain 
on more than seventeen days in a whole 
year ! "When the rain does come it makes 
sad work with the mud villages of the Fel- 
laheen; their houses, like a bankrupt '^gb 



Last Views in Egypt. 73 

into liquidation.'^ No need of rain is felt 
in Egypt while yonder Nile yields its abun- 
dant supplies. 

Thus far I have not met a single American 
tourist since I left Liverpool ! But I en- 
counter plenty of pleasant Englishmen and 
Scotchmen. My companions out to the Pyr- 
amids and the Sphinx were one of the physi- 
cians to the Queen and a bright young artist 
from London. The drive from Cairo is now 
over a fine road well lined with acacias. On 
one side I watched the Fellaheen raising water 
with the shadoof for their barley and ripen- 
ing wheat; in a field upon the other side was 
a large herd of camels grazing. After the 
many admirable descriptions of the Pyramids 
and their ascent, I need not add any account 
of my own. I found only one new thing, 
and that is a lately opened pavement or 
causeway of sohd smooth stone leading from 
the temple beside the Sphinx up towards 
the second Pjo-amid. It may have been the 
causeway over which the stones were slid 
up to build the pyramid, or it may have been 



74 The Nile to Norway. 

an inclined street for travel. A nimble Arab 
offered to climb to the top of the great pyra- 
mid of Cheops and descend again in eight 
minutes, for a franc. The fellow scrambled 
up the huge stones like a sailor up a main- 
mast, and won his wager. I was deeply 
impressed with my first view of these won- 
derful mountains of solid stone, still more 
by the mysterious Sphinx, but most of all 
by the vast, awful Sahara that stretches away 
to the west. It looked as if it were blasted 
by the hot breath from the nostrils of the 
Almighty ! One can understand better the 
terrible imagery of the Hebrew prophets 
after seeing the Egyptian deserts and the 
wild desolations of the Sinaitic peninsula. 

On Tuesday Dr. Lansing called for a drive 
to the Museum, where we examined the rich 
treasures collected from Luxor, Karnak, Ta- 
nis, etc., and arranged by the great Egyptol- 
ogist, the late Mariette Bey. A monument 
to Mariette has just been erected in front 
of the Museum. Munimie^^ which once were 
used for fertilizers, have now become so 



Last Views in Egypt. 75 

scarce that it is difficult to secure one for 
the oflfer of two hundred dollars. 

From the Museum we drove to that won- 
derful region of antiquity '' Old Cairo/^ 
which lies three miles from the present city. 
It was built as an Arab city right after Ma- 
homet^s death; but even then an old Roman 
town stood there, part of which was called 
*' Babylon.'^ It seems quite probable that 
the Apostle Peter wrote his epistles in that 
ancient Roman town — or in the part settled 
by a colony from the Persian Babylon. We 
rode through the spot where this Babylon 
stood, and gazed with awe upon the sohd 
Roman bastions which have withstood both 
the sieges of the Caliph Omar and of time 
itself. Inside of those walls, what delicious 
oddities of antiquity ! We threaded our way 
through streets just six feet wide, with the 
quaintest balconies almost meeting over our 
heads. We penetrated into the cellar of an 
extraordinary little Coptic church, far more 
than a thousand years old, which was as rude 
as a barn, and yet contained some exquisite 



76 The Nile to Norway. 

mosaics of marble and mother-of-pearl ! On 
the old reading-desk lay an illuminated pray- 
er-book, written in the days of ^^ Magna Char- 
ta/^ An Arab girl lighted a candle and took 
us down to a subterranean chapel, and showed 
us the spot where, it is claimed by the Copts, 
Joseph and Mary rested during their flight 
into Egypt. However absurd may be that 
tradition, it is quite certain that that chapel 
goes back to the early centuries of Chris- 
tianity, and is one of the few sacred places 
yet preserved that may have been occupied 
by the contemporaries of St. Jerome and 
Origen. That single church, with its sur- 
roundings of queer old fossils of architecture 
and humanity, was worth a journey to Egypt. 
In an antique synagogue near by is kept a 
rare old copy of the Pentateuch, which the 
Jews claim was transcribed by the hands of 
Ezra. We hammered long and loud at the 
gate, but the Jewish custodian was '^out'^; 
and so, like our friend Dr. SchafF, we missed 
a sight of the sacred relic. 

From all the manifold marvels of Egypt 



Last Views in Egypt. 77 

it is hard to break away. Cairo divides with 
Jerusalem and Rome the honor of being the 
most fascinating city of the globe. One week 
of diligent research has only made me hungry 
for more. But to-morrow I must be off to 
join Dr. Barr and Dr. Stewart at Ismailia, 
and with them to Jaffa and Jerusalem. 



VII. 

« 

TO THE HOLY LAND. 

Mediterranean Hotel, Jerusalem, April 27. 

'T^HE day before I left Cairo, a ^'kham- 
^ seen/^ or hot sirocco, from Ethiopia 
began to blow, and its breath was the breath 
of a furnace. It was not unhealthy, but it 
was egregiously uncomfortable. We came 
by rail to Zagazig, and there entered the 
Israelite's land of Goshen. When we reached 
Rameses — which is generally regarded as the 
starting point of the children of Israel on 
their exodus — we found it to be the vanish- 
ing point of arable land, and were soon in 
the desert which reaches to the Suez Canal. 
Brugsch Bey has published an ingenious ar- 
gument to prove that Moses started from 
Tanis, or Zoan, and led the Israelites through 
the rushes of shallow Lake Menzaleh, instead 
of the Red Sea. But his argument is not 
much deeper than the Lake. 

78 



To THE Holy Land. 79 

At Ismailia, after a scorching ride of six 
hours, we were glad to take a tiny steam- 
boat, and enjoy a cool sail to Port Said, fifty 
miles. The canal seems like a straight river 
of three hundred feet in width and twenty- 
six in depth; it is a splendid monument to 
De Lesseps — whom I saw riding through the 
streets of Cairo like a field-marshal. We met 
some large ocean-steamers moving at the 
rate of six miles per hour. At Kantarah 
we crossed the ancient highway over which 
Jacob brought his household, Alexander led 
his Macedonians, and Jfapoleon his French 
squadrons. At midnight we ran into Port 
Said, which is a product of the brain of De 
Lesseps also. It has about ten thousand in- 
habitants, large warehouses, and is a dissolute 
place, abounding in dram-shops and dance- 
houses. There is an increasing tendency 
among Mussulmen there and in Jaffa to in- 
dulge in strong drink. If Mahomet's follow- 
ers give up their total abstinence practices, 
they will surrender their chief virtue. They 
need a reenactment of ''Prohibition.'' 



80 The Nile to Norway. 

On Saturday evening we went on board 
the Austrian Lloyd steamer, and on Sabbath 
morning caught our first view of the Holy 
Land. Ancient Joppa— or Jaffa — rises very 
picturesquely on a bluff, and its suburbs to the 
south look very attractive from the water. 
We ran in close to the reef, and soon a swarm 
of Arab boats was raising a Babel about us. 
Mr. Clark, an intelligent young American from 
New Hampshire who now acts as the agent of 
the Cooks, came out to meet us with his uni- 
formed crew of ^^ Cook^s boatmen,'^ and we 
were soon at the landing where Jonah set off 
for Tarshish. After a short walk beyond the 
city walls, we found ourselves nicely fixed in 
the ^^ Jerusalem Hotel'' — surrounded by or- 
ange-groves and the neat dwellings of a Ger- 
man colony. 

In the afternoon I preached to quite a 
congregation, in the chapel of the ^'Mary 
Baldwin Mission,'' an American institution 
for the native children. Miss Arnot, who 
conducts the celebrated school in Jaffa, was 
present. After service we walked into town, 



To THE Holy Land. 81 

through, groups of women carrying water-jars 
on their heads, and fair Jewesses who looked 
hke Ruths and Rebekahs, and found our way 
to the ''house of Simon the Tanner/' It is 
an ancient building, close to the sea, and 
very possibly stands on the site of the origi- 
nal house where Peter lodged. We too went 
up on the flat roof, and looked away over 
the Mediterranean, as the apostle looked out 
over that tranquil sea eighteen centuries ago. 
The ill-starred ship of Jonah was nowhere 
in sight — only an Austrian steamer in the 
offing. All around the roof on which we 
stood, were families enjoying the evening 
air, and some of them their evening meal 
on their housetops. 

Early on Monday morning we set off for 
Jerusalem in two wagons; our party consist- 
ing of Doctors Barr and Stewart of Phila- 
delphia, ofl&cers of the United Presbyterian 
Foreign Mission Board, a gentleman from 
Australia, another from California, and my- 
self. Mr. Clark rode beside us to point 
out the localities, and he has also rendered 



82 The Nile to Norway. 

us immense service as a guide in Jerusa- 
lem. He is well-educated, speaks Arabic 
fluently, and has the genuine tact of a 
Yankee. The first half-mile led through 
orange-groves laden with ripe fruit. Then 
we came out on the broad, superb Plain 
of Sharon, which at this season of the year 
is in all its glory. Behind the cactus hedges 
were olive-orchards and gardens of figs; far 
away spread luxuriant crops of barley soon 
to be ready for the harvest. Scarlet pop- 
pies flamed over every field. Along the 
road we met caravans of pilgrims returning 
from the Greek Easter festival at Jerusalem 
— some on foot, and more mounted on cam- 
els, horses, and mules. It was a picturesque 
spectacle and recalled the days when the 
highways were thronged by Jews going up 
to Jerusalem to the Passover. One ana- 
chronism spoiled the illusion; the whole road 
was lined, alas! with the telegraph-poles of 
the ^^Eastern Company''! Only imagine 
Peter sending a message to Dorcas over 
the wires ! 



To THE Holy Land. 83 

At Ramleh we halted to ascend the lofty 
Saracenic tower, and to enjoy the wide 
view which extends for sixty miles over a 
stretch of luxuriant verdure, almost equal 
to that of England. Palm-trees waved their 
fronds; olive-groves in pale green mingled 
with the deep hue of the figs and the barley, 
and the orange -orchards were illuminated 
with their bright fruit ^' like lamps in a 
deep green night/' To the northeast arose 
Mount Ebal. To the south we caught a dim 
view of Gath and Azotus. Truly it was a 
land flowing with milk and honey; it was 
ancient Canaan once more as it kindled the 
eyes of Caleb and Joshua. 

Soon after leaving Ramleh, we crossed 
the lower end of the valley of Ajalon, 
above which Joshua commanded the sun 
to halt in the heavens. Then we entered 
upon the series of mountains that rise to- 
wards Jerusalem, and slowly toiled our 
way upwards. One beautiful picture on 
the road I can never forget. It was an- 
cient Kirjath Jearim — where the ark abode 



84 The Nile to Norway. 

for twenty years in the time of David — with 
its square buildings, its ancient church, a 
palm-tree rising above its roofs, and a train 
of camels moving up its narrow street. That 
was a photograph of thirty centuries ago. 

At Kolonieh — which claims to be the orig- 
inal Emmaus — we made our last halt. One 
more long climb up the rough locky moun- 
tain, a half mile farther on, and lo ! the 
Mosque of Omar rose in sight, and beyond 
it the green brow of Olivet! Jerusalem was 
before us. We rolled rapidly through the 
new suburbs — through a street lined with 
modern mansions, Russian hospitals, Greek 
convents, and stately institutions — and then 
entered the Jaffa gate and were on Mount 
Zion. Peace be within these walls, and 
soon the light of Messiah's Gospel upon 
yonder Olivet once more! 

Yesterday was a day of enchantment. 
We took a walk about Zion ; we gazed 
over at the mountains of Moab; we caught 
our first view of sacred Gethsemane. We 
stood by ^* Robinson's Arch,'' and strolled 



To THE Holy Land. 85 

among the ruined walls of the old rallymg- 
place of the Knights Templars. We threaded 
the narrow streets and studied the pictur- 
esque crowds that reproduced the days of 
Solomon and the days of Godfrey of Bouil- 
lon. In one respect Jerusalem has suffered 
great injustice. Most tourists describe it as 
surrounded by wild, bleak desolation. I ex- 
pected to see only mountains of glaring white 
limestone. But these travellers came at the 
wrong season of the year. April is the Sum- 
mer of Palestine; although the air yesterday 
was delightfully cool. As I stood on Mount 
Zion, the Hill of Evil Counsel and the 
mountains toward Bethlehem were clothed 
with verdure. The gardens under Moriah 
were bright with flowers. Olivet was green, 
except for the white Jewish tombs on its 
southern end. Scarlet poppies flamed among 
the stones of the ancient walls. When we 
went out of the Damascus gate, and stood 
on the low hill which many regard as the 
true site of Calvary, the whole country to- 
wards Samaria was luxuriant with waving 



86 The Nile to Norway. 

barley and with olive-orchards. So must it 
have looked when the blessed Master led 
his disciples among those very fields, and 
went towards Galilee. So must the land 
have smiled when over all its terraced hills 
and among its rich valleys it supported a 
population as teeming as the population of 
Egypt to-day. I thank God that I have 
seen His goodly land of Canaan — not dreary 
and desolate as I feared, but arrayed in the 
bright robes of Summer, and with these 
everlasting hills wearing a verdant crown 
of beauty. 



VIIL 

WALKS ABOUT JERUSALEM. 

Mediterranean Hotel, Jerusalem, May 3. 

1 ^YER since the days of David, Jerusalem 
-*"-' has been a centre for pilgrimage. When 
on our way up hither from Joppa, we m.et 
caravans of Greek pilgrims (returning from 
the sacred farce of **the fire '^ on Easter 
night), some on foot and some on donkeys 
and camels. On Sunday, at the English 
Church service, I recognized in the congre- 
gation, converted Jews, Arabs from the 
Bishop's school, Germans, Americans, and 
Australians ; in fact as many nationalities 
as Peter addressed at Pentecost. Jerusa- 
lem is a small city; it has only 25,000 in- 
habitants, and does not cover as much space 
as Poughkeepsie; yet all the world flocks 
thitlier. There is only one carriage road to 
it — from Joppa — but if a railway were pos- 

87 



88 The Nile to Norway. 

sible over these rocky heights, the rush 
hitherward would be prodigious. The com- 
mon mode of travel in Palestine is either on 
foot, or on the back of some quadruped; it 
is difficult to decide which rides the hardest. 
During the last week I have taken some 
delightful and instructive walks about the 
city and environs, and every foot of ground 
contains some Scripture history or illustra- 
tion. My convoy has been Mr. Frank Clark, 
the conductor for ''Thos. Cook & Son''; 
he has resided in Palestine many years, and 
speaks Arabic as well as a born Bedawee. 
My hotel stands on Mount Zion, close by 
Hezekiah's Pool, and within a few yards 
of the Tower of David. Starting south- 
ward from our hotel door, we soon reach 
the Armenian Convent, and the building in 
which the Last Supper is reported to have 
been celebrated by our Lord with his dis- 
ciples. This is certainly a fiction; for all 
Jerusalem has been piled over with the 
debris of twenty sieges since the time when 
Christ trod the sacred city. Every street 



Walks about Jerusalem. 89 

he walked through is from twenty to sixty- 
feet below the present surface. There is 
a Jebusite, a Jewish, a Roman, a Sara- 
cenic, and an early Turkish Jerusalem all 
lying under our feet here to-day. All that 
is left from the age of our Lord that is 
now visible are a Roman pavement, the low- 
er walls of the Temple, David^s Tower, the 
pools, the rock-tombs, and the glorious, ever- 
lasting hills like Olivet, Scopus, and ancient 
Zion. 

Standing on the brow of Zion and looking 
down toward the valleys of Hinnom or Siloam 
you see a series" of terraces, which are now 
covered with gardens, barley patches and 
fig-trees. The rains are over; the cisterns 
that supply Jerusalem with all its drinking 
water for the year are filled; the fields are 
waving for the harvest; and the verdure and 
foliage are at their best. We wind along 
outside of the city wall to Mount Moriah, 
and just under the ^'Haram,'^ or site of the 
ancient Temple, we find a path that leads 
down to the Pool of Siloam. There are two 



90 The Nile to Norway. 

pools that bear this name, but they are really- 
one; for the water from the upper pool (now 
called ^^The Virgin's'^) runs by a subterra- 
nean passage to the larger pool below. Dr. 
Edward Robinson and Capt. Warren both 
crept through this dark passage for several 
hundred feet on their hands and knees. I 
am inclined to think that the real fountain- 
head of this celebrated water-flow is up near 
the spot where Pilate's Judgment Hall once 
stood. When I went down under a Catholic 
Convent up there, and stood on a remnant 
of the old ^^ pavement of Gahhatha^'^^ I found 
the water rippling audibly in a deep vault 
beneath us. 

The upper pool of Siloam is reached by 
descending twenty-nine steps. Down at the 
foot is a small basin — not much bigger than 
a bath-tub — filled with clear cold water. 
While we were there, a pilgrim came down 
the steps, threw off his uttermost garment, 
and literally '' washed in the pool of Siloam.'^ 
When our Lord commanded a certain blind 
man to do that same thing, he probably 



Walks about Jerusalem. 91 

sent him to the lower pool. It is a walled 
reservoir, fifty-three feet long, eighteen wide 
and as many in depth. Not much of the 
stream runs into this reservoir now; but is 
carried off in a channel alongside. It in- 
terested me to watch the Arab women come 
with their earthern jars on their heads, or 
their goat-skin bags on their backs and fill 
them from the stream. One bright- eyed 
young woman asked me for ''backsheesh," 
and when I shook my head (for the beggary 
here is indecently disgraceful) she muttered 
out in Arabic, ' ' May you be struck with 
blindness ! '^ If she had known what havoc 
the catarrh had made with my hearing, she 
certainly would have spared me my eyesight. 
These Orientals are as profuse in their bene- 
diction and their curses as they were in 
ancient times. Commonly they are polite 
to strangers ; and the Bedawy chieftain who 
escorted us through the wilderness of Judea 
last week, was a model of both courtesy and 
fine horsemanship. As he dashed away on 
his steed along the shore of the Dead Sea, 



92 The Nile to Norway. 

lie presented a vivid picture of the Jethros 
and the other Sheikhs mentioned in the Old 
Testament. 

From Siloam we go up the valley of Je- 
hoshaphat. To the right stands the tomb 
of Absalom. We too flung our stone into 
the heap that surrounds the handsome young 
scoundrers grave. "We walk along by the 
banks of the brook Kedron, but it is already 
dry. During the rainy season it runs brim- 
full. Col. Wilson, our Consul, tells me that 
when the Autumn rains begin and the Ke- 
dron fills up, the people of Jerusalem throng 
down there with songs and shouts to welcome 
the coming of the water. In the Orient 
water is counted as Grod's richest blessing. 
Why should not we in America learn wisdom 
from these, our ancestors ? We go a few^ 
rods up Kedron and there before us is a 
walled enclosure; above the wall we see the 
tops of two cypresses and a few venerable 
olive-trees. That enclosed spot is sacred 
G-ethsemane. Down yonder hill -side from 
that city gate the Man of Sorrows walked, 



Walks about Jerusalem. 93 

on that awful night to his struggle with 
the powers- of darkness, on this hallowed 
ground. 

I expected to find Gethsemane desolate 
and neglected. Instead of that I found it 
in beautiful order — with an elegant inner 
iron railing, and laid out in tasteful flower- 
beds. Alongside of the ancient olive-trees 
— many hundreds of years old — grow a pro- 
fusion of roses, carnations, marigolds, helio- 
tropes, and many varieties of fragrant plants. 
The air was loaded with sweet odors; and 
the courteous gardener (from a neighboring 
convent) allowedr us to pick as many flowers 
as we chose. This adorning of the scene of 
my blessed Saviour^s agony was grateful to 
me. Why not? Did he not bear the grief that 
we might taste the sweetness of the blessing 
of redemption? I rejoiced to see these fra- 
grant tributes blooming so thick and rich and 
beautiful, as tokens of the heavenly hopes 
that have sprung up from Gethsemane 's soil 
once steeped with tears. 

From the sacred garden, a travelled road 



94 The Nile to Norway. 

that has been a thoroughfare for twenty cen- 
turies, leads up around the southern shoulder 
of the Mount of Olives. It is the ancient 
road to Bethany. Over this very road our 
Redeemer often walked; over it he was once 
brought in triumph amid the waving of palm- 
branches and the shouts of '^Hosanna!'' 
There are only two other places in Palestine 
where we are sure our Lord once set his 
feet. One of them is beside Jacob's well 
at Sychar, and the other is the little hill 
above Nazareth, on which the Nazarenes 
have always walked every day. 

Yesterday morning early I went out '*as 
far as to Bethany.'' There is a remain of 
a Roman pavement to prove that this was 
the ancient pathway. Just before reaching 
the village — which stands among fig and 
olive orchards — I turned aside to see three 
old tombs in the rocks— and many archaeolo- 
gists think that one of them may have been 
the tomb of Lazarus. They are an hundred 
rods from the village — a very probable dis- 
tance. The tomb that is commonly called 



Walks about Jerusalem. 95 

by the name of Lazarus is right in the Httle 
village. I took a candle and crept down a 
steep winding stairway of twenty-five steps 
and then reached a square cavity that led 
down three steps farther into a small cave. 
That cave is the traditional tomb where Laz- 
arus laid for four days in the sleep of death. 
If it be the true spot, then our Lord wrought 
that mighty miracle at the bottom of a deep 
pit where only half a dozen persons could 
have room to stand. My own judgment 
inclines toward that other spot I had visited 
a few moments before. 

Dear, hallowed Bethany is now a small 
Arab village of twenty stone houses, so 
closely packed together that at a distance 
they look like an old stone fortification. One 
ruined house is claimed to be the remnant 
of the dwelling in which Jesus held sweet 
converse with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. 
I have no faith in that tradition. But just 
behind Bethany — toward Jerusalem — rises a 
beautiful hill, verdant to the summit. It is 
the south-eastern spur from the Mount of 



96 The Nile to Norway. 

Olives. I climbed it with reverent awe; for 
I firmly believe that it was from that hill, 
or from its sides, that the Lord of glory as- 
cended up to heaven. Superstition has built 
no ''Church of the Ascension" there as it 
has on the top of Olivet, over against Jeru- 
salem. No relic-mongers haunt it or dese- 
crate it. It stands in its silent beauty above 
the little village that Jesus loved to visit, 
and when he led his disciples '' out as far as 
to Bethany," I believe that he led them 
there. That green elevation may probably 
have been the last spot of earth which the 
incarnate Saviour ever trod. 



IX. 

THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAJST. 

Jerusalem, May 2. 

T AM very glad that the grand old Tower 
-^ of David stands only a few rods from my 
hotel window. It is a pleasant thing to be 
often looking at the one remaining structure 
on which the eye of the Redeemer may have 
rested: for though this tower was thrown 
down in the time^ of the Crusades, yet the 
lower portion is rebuilt of the same stones. 
Not far from the Tower is Christ Church, 
where I was glad to worship yesterday — 
not in an unknown tongue. Bishop Barclay, 
the successor of Bishop Gobat, has a good 
congregation, largely composed of the young 
people connected with his day-school for the 
Jews, and another for Arabs outside of the 
city walls. Most of the converts made thus 
far come from the Jewish and the Syrian ele- 

97 



98 The Nile to Norway. 

ment. Neither here nor in Egypt have over 
a dozen Mussulmen been converted to Chris- 
tianity. Bishop Barclay is a genial, earnest 
^' Low Churchman. ^^ In my last letter I re- 
ferred to Kolonieh as the possible site of 
ancient Emmaus; but the Bishop has given 
me some most convincing arguments in fa- 
vor of Kubeibeh, which stands about eight 
miles northwest of Jerusalem, just beyond 
Neby Samwil. 

Last Thursday morning I set off with my 
four companions upon an excursion, which, 
although it involved hard horseback travel 
over rough paths and precipitous mountains, 
and exposures to blazing noon-day heats, 
yet was abundantly stimulating and de- 
lightful. We were under the direction of 
Mr. Frank Clark, who loaded up a donkey 
with rations for the journey. We set our 
faces for the Pools of Solomon — halting a 
few moments at the tomb of Rachel by the 
roadside. The small structure was crowded 
with Jews, some of whom wore phylac- 
teries, and all were wailing, as they wail 



The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 99 

beside the remnant of the Temple walls. 
One old woman was weeping and pressing 
her withered cheek against the tomb with 
as much distress as if the fair young wife 
who breathed out her life there forty cen- 
turies ago had been her own daughter. We 
found the enormous Pools of Solomon (the 
longest of which measures 580 feet in length) 
were about half filled with pure water. We 
rode beside the aqueduct that leads from 
them, all the way to Bethlehem. Down 
among the bleak and barren hills we saw 
the deep, fertile vale of Urtas, filled with 
gardens and fruit-trees. It is cultivated by 
the European colony planted by Mr. Mes- 
hullam. For a half hour we feasted our 
eyes with the view of beautiful Bethlehem 
perched on its lofty hill and surrounded by 
olive-orchards. So many new edifices have 
been erected for convents and other relig- 
ious purposes, that Bethlehem has almost a 
modern look. As we rode through its nar- 
row streets we saw no Ruths, but an an- 
cient Jew in turban, long robe, and flowing 



100 The Nile to Norway. 

beard, quite answered to my idea of Boaz. 
We rode to the Convent adjoining the Church 
of the Nativity, where a rather jollj^-looking 
monk furnished us an excellent lunch. He 
then took us into the venerable church that 
covers the subterranean chamber in whic^h 
tradition has always held that our blessed 
Lord was born. The chamber is probably 
a remnant of an ancient khan once belong- 
ing to the family of Jesse and of King 
David. I expected to be shocked by a 
sham mockery when I entered the church, 
but a feeling of genuine faith in the locali- 
ty came over me as I descended into the 
rocky chamber and read, around the silver 
star, the famous inscription in Latin, *^Here 
Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.'' 
The three-fold argument for the authentic- 
ity of this site is drawn from unbroken 
tradition, from the fact that Bethlehem has 
never been overthrown in sieges, and from 
the other fact that the learned St. Jerome 
(in the fourth century) was so sure of the 
site that he came and spent his long, la- 



The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 101 

borious life in the cavern close by the birth- 
spot of our Lord. I entered with deep 
interest the cave in which this devout 
scholar meditated and prayed and wrought 
the Vulgate translation of God^s Word. My 
visit to the Church of the Nativity was ten- 
fold more satisfactory tlian that to the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre in this city. 

At two o^clock, under a broiling sun, our 
cavalcade of ten horses and mules filed out 
of Bethlehem and headed for the wilderness 
of Judea — one of the dreariest wildernesses 
on the globe. At the head of our line rode 
the gallant Bedawy chief, the Sheikh Resheid, 
equipped with sword and dagger, and show- 
ing the scars of half a dozen wounds. Re- 
sheid is the most powerful Sheikh in Judea, 
and led the escort of the Prince of Wales 
and Dean Stanley to the Dead Sea and the 
Jordan. His presence with us for three 
days afforded us an excellent opportunity 
to observe the looks and ways of a high- 
blooded Bedawy; but his protection was quite 
needless against the few shabby Arabs whom 



102 The Nile to Norway. 

we met in their j&lthy black tents in the 
wilderness. For an hour we rode among 
barley-fields. I noticed how close the grain 
grew to the path, and how easy it was for 
the sower's grain to ^^ fall on the highway.'' 
I also saw several plats of angry thornst^ 
which would ^' choke" any seed which may 
fall among them. 

Our afternoon's march over the bleak, tree- 
less, and brown mountains of the wilderness 
was inexpressibly tiresome until we came in 
sight of the Dead Sea. It lay two thousand 
feet below us — a mirror of silver, set among 
the violet mountains of Moab. More pre- 
cipitous descents over rocks and sand brought 
us, by sundown, to the two towers of the 
most unique monastery on the globe. The 
famous Convent of Mar Saha is worth a 
journey to Palestine. For thirteen cen- 
turies that wonderful structure has hung 
against the walls of the deep, awful gorge 
of the Kedron. It is a colossal swallows' 
nest of stone, built to the height of three 
hundred feet against the precipice, and in- 



The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 103 

habited by sixty monks of the Greek Church 
— genuine Manicheans, and followers of St 
Saba and St. John of Damascus. No wo- 
man's foot has ever entered the convent's 
walls ! Instead of woman's society they 
make love to the birds, who come and feed 
off the monks' hands. Every evening they 
toss bread down to the wild jackals in the 
gorge below. At sunset I climbed over the 
extraordinary building — was shown into the 
rather handsome church, and into the chapel 
or cave of St. Nicholas, which contains the 
ghastly skulls of the monks who were slaugh- 
tered by Chosroes and his Persian soldiers 
— and gazed down into the awful ravine be- 
neath the convent walls. Some monks in 
black gowns were perched as watchmen on 
the lofty towers; others wandered over the 
stone pavements in a sort of aimless vacuity. 
What an attempt to live in an exhausted 
receiver ! 

The monks gave us hospitable welcome, 
sold us canes and woodwork, and furnished 
us lodgings on the divans of two large stone 



104 The Nile to Norway. 

parlors. One of the religious duties of the 
brotherhood is to keep vigils, and through 
the night bells were ringing and clanging to 
call them in to their devotions. The vermin 
in the lodging-rooms had learned to keep up 
their vigils also; and as the result our party ^ 
—with one exception — had a sleepless night. 
I have such a talent for sleeping, and like 
Pat ^'pay attintion to if so closely, that I 
was able to defy even the fleas and mos- 
quitoes of Mar Saba. By daylight the next 
morning we heard the great iron door of the 
convent clang behind us like the gate of 
Bunya^n's *' Doubting Castle,'^ and for five 
hours we made a toilsome descent of the 
desolate cliffs to the shore of the Dead Sea. 
That much-maligned sea has a weird and 
wonderful beauty. We took a bath in its 
cool, clear waters, and detected no differ- 
ence from a bath at Coney Island except 
that the water has such density that we 
floated on it like pine shingles. No fish 
from the salt ocean can live in it; but it is 
very attractive to the eye on a hot noon- 



The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 105 

day. A scorching ride we had across the 
barren plain to the sacred Jordan — which 
disappointed me sadly. At the places where 
the Israelites crossed and our Lord was bap- 
tized it is about one hundred and twenty feet 
wide; it flows rapidly and in a turbid cur- 
rent of light stone color. In size and ap- 
pearance it is the perfect counterpart of the 
Muskingum a few miles above Zanesville. 
Its useless waters ought to be turned off to 
irrigate its barren valley, which might be 
changed into a garden. For beauty the Jor- 
dan will not compare with Elijah's Brook 
Cherith, whose bright, sparkling stream went 
flowing past our lodging-place at Jericho. 
We lodged over night in a Greek convent 
(very small), and rode next morning to see 
the ruins of the town made famous by Josh- 
ua, Elijah, Zaccheus, and the restoration of 
Bartimeus to sight. Squalid Arabs haunt 
the sacred spot. 

Our climb from Jericho to Jerusalem was 
hot and toilsome — past the wild gorge of 
the Brook Cherith, and up rocky ravines, 



106 The Nile to Norway. 

till we reached the fountain of En Shemesh. 
There we halted at a ruined khan, and I 
was glad to throw myself on the ground, 
utterly tired out. While we rested and 
lunched on eggs and oranges, the Sheikh 
Resheid amused himself playing cards with 
a brother Arab. Our last march brought 
us up among the olives and fig-trees of dear, 
blessed Bethany ! I could have kissed the 
very ground. Its soil is hallowed with the 
footsteps and the tears of the Man of Sorrows. 
So ended our delightful journey. 

Every day here is wonderful; I seem to 
be in an enchanted dream. A few nights 
ago I went out on the flat roof of our hotel 
near midnight. Jerusalem was silent and 
dark except where a lamp gleamed here and 
there in a window. Before me lay Olivet 
with its outline barely discernible in the dim 
starlight. Beneath it was Gethsemane: and 
not far from me is the reputed site of Cal- 
vary. I began to recall the scenes of that 
memorable night when Jesus went out of 
these streets to his betrayaL I repeated 



The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 107 

to myself those lines my dear Lafayette - 
avenue flock love to sing: 

**'Tis midnight; and on Olive's brow 
The suffering Saviour weeps alone." 

So actual, so near, so vivid, did the scenes 
of the Last Night rise before me, that I 
was perfectly overpowered. That one hour 
was a sufficient reward for all my long jour- 
ney to the world^s only Jerusalem. 



THE OLD AND THE NEW, 

JerusalerYiy May 6. 

'' T APHET shall dwell in the tents of Shem '^ 
^ is a prediction that finds fresh illustra- 
tion now in the Europeanizing of the Ori- 
ent. The new patches begin to show in the 
old garment. As I have already remarked, 
Egypt is on the *'up grade '^ — and the most 
intelligent people in Palestine and Syria sigh 
for a government as endurable as that of the 
Khedive. 

In Jerusalem and Bethlehem I see evident 
tokens of a new era. If *' Japhef is not 
here in large numbers, his ideas are coming 
in a steady stream. To be sure, Palestine 
in the main is the Palestine of ancient days. 
There is not a newspaper published in the 
whole land, for the two petty sheets issued 
by the rabbis here do not deserve that name. 

108 



The Old and the New. 109 

There is only one carriage-road, and that 
leads from Jerusalem to Jaffa. A railway 
is no more to be thought of over these pre- 
cipitous hills than an orange-tree in Green- 
land. Across the beautiful and fertile plain 
of Sharon I saw the ' ' fellaheen '^ driving the 
same clumsy plough that was driven by the 
prophet Elisha. The Arab women at Jericho 
sat grinding at the mill, after the fashion of 
their ancestors. All Palestine rides yet on 
camels and on the ^^foal of an ass,'' as in 
the time of our Lord; but still the tokens of 
change are in the air. A post-oflEice (man- 
aged by Austrians) will carry this letter to 
the ancient Joppa of Jonah and of Dorcas, 
and place it on board of an Austrian mail- 
steamer. There is a new Jerusalem spring- 
ing up rapidly outside of the old city walls, 
toward the west. For a half mile the street 
is lined with handsome buildings — some of 
them schools, hospitals, and convents; some 
of them quite elegant residences of merchants 
and bankers. The Anglican bishop. Dr. Bar- 
clay, tells me that not one of these edifices 



110 The Nile to Norway. 

was standing when he came here nineteen 
years ago. Jerusalem has absohitely grown 
more during that time than some of the towns 
in the interior of New York. 

Along the turnpike to Jaffa runs the tele- 
graph wire, and on the plain of Sharon stands 
the large '^Jewish Agricultural College,'^ sur- 
rounded by a model farm and thrifty nurser- 
ies. Bethlehem is a thriving town — largely 
it is nominally Christian — and it carries on 
extensive manufactures in mother-of-pearl. 
The Bethlehemites brought back from our 
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia about 
seventy thousand dollars as the net profit 
of the sale of their beautiful wares. If Pal- 
estine were only delivered from the tyranny 
of the Sultan, or were ruled by such a man 
as the Pasha RoulfF (the Governor of Jeru- 
salem), it would rise rapidly into a new era 
of economic progress. The Sultan's touch 
and tread are death. 

Last Monday I walked up the Yalley of 
Hinnom, the ancient '^Gehenna'' of the days 
of Moloch. I expected to find a horrible 



The Old and the New. Ill 

desolation; but, instead of that, I found a 
valley full of olive orchards, and on its slopes 
toward the Hill of Evil Counsel I saw new 
buildings, and among them were several 
built by the legacy of Judah Touro, the 
American Jew. However dismal Gehenna 
may once have been, it is now a far better 
type of Paradise than of Purgatory. Yes- 
terday Bishop Barclay called to take me out 
to the anniversary meeting of the ^^Talitha 
Cumi,'' an admirable institution for Arab 
girls, built and controlled by the Grerman 
deaconesses of Kaiserwerth. The good Bish- 
op wore his canonical hat and knee-breeches, 
and was preceded by two Arab guards, 
armed with swords and staves; and the mot- 
ley crowd of Arabs, Jews, Armenians, and 
Syrians politely saluted us as we passed. 
I wish, by the way, that our Yankee nation 
would pick up some lessons in courtesy from 
these Orientals, whom we count '' heathen. ^^ 
When I happened to look in upon some Jew- 
ish schools, the little fellows, who were sit- 
ting cross-legged upon their mats, all jumped 



112 The Nile to Norway. 

up instinctively and remained standing until 
I motioned them to their seats. At Cairo 
the Arab chamberman came into my room 
and said ^' Good night/' in the most home- 
like way, every evening. Blessings on the 
fellow! He almost seemed like one of my 
family. When I was down in the Wilderness 
of Judea, the gallant Bedawy chief, Sheikh 
Resheid, who escorted us, had the courteous 
bearing of a native prince. 

But to the ^^Talitha Cumi.'' We found 
a handsome stone edifice out on the Jaffa 
road, with a garden in front, well stocked 
with figs, pomegranates, and vines, mingled 
with our hollyhocks and roses. The insti- 
tution is managed by a company of Ger- 
man deaconesses, who were attired in blue 
gowns and jaunty white caps. In the three 
rooms opening into the central hall were 
gathered more than an hundred bright-eyed 
Arab girls, dressed in European style. How 
sweetly they sang the old German hymns 
in ** plain song 'M Baron Munchausen the 
German Consul, and a banker made speech- 



The Old and the New. 113 

es; the English bishop presided; a report 
was read; and everything done quite in our 
own style, even to the passing around of 
refreshments afterward. I could almost im- 
agine that I was attending the anniversary 
of my own ''Olivet Mission/' in Brooklyn. 
The Deaconesses have also a well-managed 
hospital near this hotel. 

Here in Jerusalem we have no American 
mission. The chief work done in English is 
by the London Society for the Jews. They 
have a handsome church on Mount Zion; and 
a neat chapel, in which I made a missionary 
talk, last evening, to a good audience, com- 
posed of converted Jews and English resi- 
dents and visitors. There is a prodigious dif- 
ficulty in moving the Jews in Jerusalem; first 
because those who live in the city of their 
fathers are intensely bigoted in their faith, 
and secondly because so many of the Jews 
here live entirely on the pecuniary bounty 
of their rich brethren in Europe. Then, too, 
if a young Jew turns Christian, he finds no 
employment among his people here, and 



114 The Nile to Norway. 

often has to emigrate. But in spite of these 
difficulties, a considerable number of Jews 
have been received into the membership 
of ^'Christ Church/^ under the oversight of 
the Anglican bishop. The Bergheims (bank- 
ers), Conrad Shick the antiquarian archi- 
tect and Mr. Sapphira are all proselytes 
from Judaism. I was much interested in 
visiting the hospital and the schools con- 
ducted by the London Society. In the girls' 
school I observed that the room appropriated 
to day-scholars was empty. The reason as- 
signed was that the Jews of Amsterdam 
had remonstrated with the parents of the 
children and persuaded them to take their 
children from the Christian school and place 
them in one of their own. An additional 
backsheesh in the shape of a daily break- 
fast and dinner is offered to every child of 
Israel who will return to the schools of the 
Rabbis. ''We will get them all back again,'' 
said the English teacher to me; but by what 
methods she did not explain. Labor to con- 
vert the Israelites is like the road from 



The Old and the New. 115 

Jericho and the Jordan — rather hard and 
up-hill. 

The Jews compose about one third of the 
population of the city. They hve chiefly 
upon Mount Zion, and whether they have 
come thither from Germany, or Poland, or 
Russia, or Holland, they are always and 
everywhere the "peculiar people.'* Their 
Judaism is as- essentially a part and parcel 
of them as their keen eyes and their aqui- 
line noses. It is on account of their intense 
attachment to the faith of their fathers that 
they have come to live and to die in the 
Holy City. A iarge portion of them are 
supported by the bounty of Sir Moses Monte- 
fiore, and other wealthy Jews in Europe; it 
may be imagined therefore how seriously this 
fact impedes all efforts to convert them to 
Christianity. A Jew in Jerusalem is not 
much more impressible than a Mussulman 
in Mecca. It has only been after the most 
untiring labors that Bishop Barclay, Mr. 
Kelk, Mr. Friedlander, and the other mis- 
sionaries of the London Society have sue- 



116 The Nile to Norway. 

ceeded, during twenty years, in gathering 
about sixscore of proselytes into ^' Christ 
Church/' 

I looked into the chief synagogue on 
Mount Zion the other day. About a dozen 
gray-bearded Israelites were studying the 
Talmud. Some looked like Abraham — and 
some like Shylock. In about such an edi- 
fice our Lord stood up to expound the 
prophecies of Isaiah at Nazareth. As I 
was passing through the Jewish quarter 
I heard the hum of children's voices, and 
went into one of the principal schools. 
Upon the floor and upon low seats were 
a crowd of boys sitting cross-legged, swing- 
ing back and forth, and all repeating some- 
thing that sounded like ^^ Alah-alah-lah-lah- 
lah '' in a rapid roll. Their teacher was 
smoking a cigarette and kept up as steady 
a chatter as his pupils. In some rooms they 
were studying the Pentateuch; in others 
they were busy over their arithmetics. Their 
school-books were well printed. 

I am never weary of studying the every- 



The Old and the New. 117 

day life of the dwellers in Jerusalem. Every 
color, kind, and costume are represented in 
the streets. The streets themselves are about 
as wide as the hall of an average house in 
America — except ''David'' and ''Christian'" 
streets, which reach the remarkable width 
of about fourteen or fifteen feet. In these 
two thoroughfares a few dim lamps are hung 
at night; in all the other alleys the few per- 
sons who venture out at night carry their 
own lanterns. Many of the streets are arched 
over with heavy stone, and look like long 
vaults. Through these streets pours a steady 
stream of foot-passengers, camels, and don- 
keys, so thick and confused that one must 
walk circumspectly or he will be run over. 
As to the filth of these thoroughfares, it is 
so amazing as to even make- New York seem 
clean in the comparison. One excuse for this 
chronic nastiness is the scarcity of water; for 
all that the inhabitants have to rely upon is 
the rain water which falls during about three 
months, and is preserved in cisterns for use 
during all the rest of the year. Into the 



118 The Nile to Norway. 

sides of these narrow streets are let a series 
of rooms (or caves) about ten feet square 
which constitute the shops and stores of the 
metropohs of Judea. In one room works a 
blacksmith with an anvil and an iron vice 
like ours. In the next shop a closely veiled 
Arabic woman is buying a silk dress; there 
is only space for the salesman and about srk 
customers. Next to the dry-goods shop is 
a grain market with heaps of wheat, sesame,' 
rice, and barley on the floor. A woman is 
filling a half-bushel with barley and squeezing 
it down with her hands so that she may fur- 
nish ^^fuU measure, pressed down, and run- 
ning over.'' So does every little act throw 
light on Scripture in this land of the Bible. 
Next to the grain-market is an ancient 
khan, on whose seats are a group of coun- 
try folk, some smoking their narguilehs and 
some fast asleep. These Orientals lie about, 
fast asleep, in the mosques, in the streets, 
on a camel's back, or anywhere. Behind 
the seats in the khan are a dozen donkeys 
being fed on barley-straw. It must have 



The Old and the New. 119 

been in the subterranean room of just such 
a khan at Bethlehem that our blessed Lord 
was born. Probably the khan at Bethlehem 
belonged to the descendants of David, so 
that Jesus was born on the actual spot 
where Ruth, Jesse, and the Psalmist had 
once resided. Next to the khan we come 
to a shop in which a cotton-dresser with a 
clumsy instrument like an one-stringed harp, 
is dressing raw cotton from Egypt. Next 
to him is a money-changer and he is prob- 
ably a Jew. Along through the crowded 
streets push and press a motley throng of 
Jewesses with white cotton mantles over 
their heads — of bare-legged Arabs — of Ar- 
menian priests with slouching black hoods — 
of Grreek priests with caps like a section 
of a stovepipe — of Franciscan friars in gray 
robes with a rope tied around their waists — 
of turbaned Turks and occasionally a Beda- 
win chieftain from the desert. I saw one 
splendid looking fellow to-day well mounted, 
and carrying a spear twelve feet long. Oc- 
casionally we meet an Arab woman bearing 



120 The Nile to Norway. 

a bag on her back hung by a cord across 
her forehead. Out of the bag peeps a baby 
Ishmaehte six or eight months old. The 
Jewish women and the fellaheen generally 
go unveiled. The Turkish and the Arabs 
too of the higher castes wear a thin guaze 
veil. 

Every visitor to Palestine is tempted to 
try a little identification of ancient sites, on 
his own hook. I too have caught the infec- 
tion, and have reached a comfortable degree 
of assurance on the following disputed points. 
First, I believe in the genuineness of the 
Bethlehem Chapel of the Nativity as the 
true site of the birth of the infant Saviour. 
Secondly, I believe that the grave of Lazarus 
was one of the four or five open hewn tombs 
just out of Bethany — and that our Lord as- 
cended to heaven from that green hill imme- 
diately behind Bethany, and not from the 
summit of Olivet. Thirdly, I do not believe 
at all in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
as the spot of the crucifixion or of the 
burial. Nor have I found any intelligent 



The Old and the New. 121 

antiquarian here (except my good friend the 
American Consul) who still holds to that 
fast vanishing opinion. We shall probabl}^ 
never hioiu just where our blessed Lord 
endured his last agony, or where he was 
laid with the rich in his death. It may have 
been the purpose of the All- Wise God to 
conceal this locality from human knowledge 
just as the place of the sepulture of Moses 
has been concealed from after generations. 

But among all the sites of the crucifixion 
that have yet been suggested I believe that 
the strongest prohaUUty attaches to that ele- 
vation, a few rods northeast of the Damascus 
gate. It is precisely in the form of a human 
skull, and in that respect answers to the 
name of "Calvary.^' It is a rounded knoll 
of two or three hundred feet in length en- 
tirely bare of trees, and a considerable por- 
tion of it is now used as a Mohammedan 
burial-ground. Just beyond it, on the road 
towards Samaria, are the remains of the great 
Jewish cemetery of ancient times. The Jews 
— (according to Dr. Chaplin a most acute 



122 The Nile to Norway. 

archaeologist) *^ still point out that knoll hy 
the name of Beth-has-Sekilah or the ' place 
of stoning/ and state that it was the ancient 
place of public executions/' If this be so, 
then it is probable that Stephen may have 
suffered martyrdom on the very spot wherc^ 
his Lord was crucified. That knoll is fai 
enough away from Pilate's Judgment Hall 
and far enough away, from Mounts Zion, 
Moriah and Acra to have been outside of 
the second wall. (If the second wall was 
inside of the spot where the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre now stands, then ancient 
Jerusalem must have been a most diminutive 
specimen of a city — really not more than 
a village). No one spot yet suggested as 
the scene of the last Passion, seems to my 
mind, to possess such strong arguments in 
its favor as this spot outside of the Damascus 
gate. It contains, on its south side, a 
deep excavation called ^'Jeremiah's Grotto." 
From the top, a wide view of Jerusalem and 
Olivet and the distant hills of Moab is ob- 
tained; if our Lord were crucified there, a 



The Old and the New. 123 

vast multitude of people could have witnessed 
the awful spectacle. During my stay in Jeru- 
salem I have gone out, several times, to this 
bare rounded elevation, and have felt a shud- 
der of awe steal over me at the thought that 
I might be actually standing on the rocky 
mound which witnessed the scene of the 
world's Redemption ! 

Canon Tristram has lately returned from 
an exploration of the land of Moab; and 
Lieutenant C. R. Condor is soon expected 
here on his way to the survey of the eastern 
side of Jordan. Since such valuable discov- 
eries have been' made by the excavations 
of Troy, and Mycene, the question may be 
asked — why are not more thorough excava- 
tions made in Jerusalem? To this we may 
reply that Jerusalem is not a desolate ruin, 
but a thickly inhabited city. Almost every 
square rod is covered with sohd stone struc- 
tures — which could only be removed at great 
expense. The inhabitants are opposed to 
being dug up and overturned. Skilled labor 
to carry on such work is very scarce. No 



124 The Nile to Norway. 

extensive and thorough excavations can be 
made in Jerusalem without involving enor- 
mous expenditure of labor and of money. 
The secret treasures of history and archaeology 
that are hidden beneath the stone foundations 
of the Holy City are likely to remain hidden 
for a long time to come. 

Great as are the physical dif3B.culties in 
the way of exploring subterranean Jerusa- 
lem, they are not one tittle as formidable as 
the obstacles to the fulfilment of the devout 
dream of the ^^ return of the Jews to Pales- 
tine.'' In ancient times the Israelites were 
an agricultural and herd-raising people. In 
our day their descendants, scattered over Eu- 
rope and America, are almost entirely a com- 
mercial people. The few Jews who migrate 
hither are mostly averse to farming. If they 
cannot aspire to be bankers or merchants, 
they are content to *^ dicker '' in a small way 
as hucksters, and petty traffickers. Palestine 
is a diminutive country, unable at present to 
maintain any considerable percentage of the 
Jews now swarming over the world. It is 



The Old and the New. 125 

only one hundred and sixty miles long, and 
at its widest point only fifty-eight miles in 
breadth. 

A large portion of it is wild and desolate 
rocky hills that can only be made valuable by 
a costly restoration of the ancient system of 
irrigation by pools and artificial cisterns. The 
fertile and arable regions that I have been en- 
joying in their vernal beauty — such as the 
plain of Sharon, and the regions about Beth- 
lehem and towards Samaria — are the property 
of the native ''fellaheen/' or farmers. They 
can be dislodged only by purchase, and there 
is no dispositionr manifested by Jews to buy 
them out. The average Jew is more inclined 
to invest in stocks or jewelry than he is to 
try ''real estate'' in Judea. Even if the 
whole land were now adopted to agriculture 
and herd-raising, the security of a strong and 
just government is indispensable to the suc- 
cess of any extensive colonization. The val- 
ley of the lower Jordan — now so desolate — 
might be transformed to-morrow into a fruit- 
ful garden, simply by turning the waters of 



126 The Nile to Norway. . 

the Jordan over it and putting in the plough. 
But what colonists will undertake all that 
labor as long as the Bedawin could swoop 
down and carry off the whole crop in a 
single night? Such are some of the hard 
facts that the believers in the immediate res- 
toration of Israel to Palestine have to en- 
counter. I see no signs of such a restora- 
tion. I do not pretend to unravel prophecy, 
or to limit the wonder-working power of 
Grod; but at present there is no more proba- 
bility of a Jewish occupation of the Holy 
Land than there is that the Pope will set 
up his throne in Washington, or that the 
^^ Church of the Latter-day Saints'' will get 
possession of "Westminster Abbey. 




XL 

BEYROUT AND THE SYRIAN MISSIONS. 

Steamer **Espero" May 13. 

TF it was not easy to leave Cairo, I was 
^ still more reluctant to leave Jerusalem. 
The accomplished Anghcan Bishop Barclay, 
our Consul, Col. Wilson, and other friends 
were very helpful to me in studying that 
fascinating ground of prophets and apostles, 
and of Him who was above them all. I 
desired greatly to go north into Gahlee, but 
the increasing heat of the weather added to 
several other strong reasons decided me 
to return to Jaffa. I had already seen the 
representative places. After traversing the 
plain of Sharon it was not so important 
to see the plain of Esdraelon; the view of 
Bethlehem had to compensate me for not 
seeing Nazareth; and, aside from its tender 

127 



128 The Nile to Norway. 

associations, the lake of Genesareth does not 
compare in picturesqueness with the Dead 
Sea and the mountains of Moab. 

On Friday morning, I stowed myself away 
in a wagon, with three Armenian pilgrims — 
and an indefinite amount of their bed-quilts 
and bundles, — and started for Jaffa. In spite 
of the heat the ride was full of enjoyment; 
we stopped twice for rest and refreshment, 
so that our time spent in the wagon was 
only eight hours. The turnpike is very fair; 
we passed several lines of camels laden with 
goods for Jerusalem, and on the back of one 
I espied a box labelled '' Pratt's Astral oil.'' 
It was pleasant for me to observe how 
Brooklyn is shedding light into Judea. The 
village of ^'Soba" on a lofty height to our 
left, contests with ''Abou Gosch'^ the right 
to an identity with ancient Kirjath Jearim. 
Either one may be the true site, and much 
may be said for both. I cannot accept the 
theory that the valley of Elah, in which 
David had his duel with Goliath, lies about 
Kolonieh; it must be several miles farther 



Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 129 

south. At five o^clock we came in sight of 
Joppa — for it is dearer to us by its script- 
ural name than by its modern cognomen of 
Jaffa. That last hour of my ride, among 
the enchanting orange-groves near the town, 
gave me the finest oriental picture I have 
yet seen. The oranges — of which three mil- 
lion a year are produced in those groves — 
were in their luscious perfection. Fig-trees, 
brilliant pomegranate-blossoms, and a few 
stately palms adorned the road-side. Troops 
of camels, and of travellers in bright varied 
costumes poured along. Before me arose 
Joppa on its hilltops, and beside it sparkled 
the blue Mediterranean; the memory of Dor- 
cas, and of Peter and of Cornehus added 
new sweetness to the fragrant air. Behind 
us was the verdant background of Sharon, 
and the distant mountains about Bethhoron. 
My last day in Judea was pleasantly passed 
in exploring the quaint old streets of Joppa 
and in visiting the admirable school for Arab 
girls conducted by Miss Arnot. 

The next afternoon I left in this Austrian 



130 The Nile to Norway. 

Lloyd steamer '^Espero'^ which is on the 
fortnightly line for Beyrout, Smyrna and 
Constantinople. She is a good boat, and 
since leaving Beyrout her first cabin has 
been filled with a refined and social com- 
pany — largely Americans. Her decks out- 
side of the main cabin, are densely covered 
with a menagerie of Turks, Syrians, Greeks, 
Arabs, and all manner of Orientals, who eat, 
drink and sleep in the open air. Some of 
them are pilgrims from Jerusalem. Some 
are devout Mussulmen, and perform their 
prayer-service on the deck four times a 
day with a military precision. A line of 
them kneel together (facing east), bow their 
heads to the deck together, rise up together, 
and then prostrate themselves again, while 
their lips are repeating lines of the Koran. 
Certainly a Mohammedan is never ashamed 
to show his colors. 

Among the cabin passengers is a beauti- 
ful wife of a Turkish Pasha in Constanti- 
nople, who has her meals apart with her 
attendants, but who mingles with the rest 



Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 131 

of our company on the deck. She is richly 
apparelled, and wears a white veil — which 
she opens at the eyes sufficiently to read 
or write; but her lustrous eyes, rich com- 
plexion, and costume look as if they had 
come out of the canvas of one of Frederick 
Bridgman's Oriental pictures. The eastern 
dress is not always " handy '^ for work, but 
it is exceedingly graceful and picturesque 
in its effects. 

On the first evening after leaving Joppa, 
I watched with intense interest the revolv- 
ing light on Mount Carmel, and early the 
next morning caught a fine view of glorious 
Hermon with its diadem of snow. Soon 
afterwards we began to see a few buildings 
on a bluff at the base of Lebanon. I knew 
at once that they must be those buildings 
which American piety and zeal have reared 
as the spiritual lighthouses for Syria and 
the East. I have only taken off my hat 
in reverence on two occasions since I left 
home; once was when I entered the gate 
of Jerusalem, the other time was when our 



132 The Nile to Norway. 

steamer came up abreast of the American 
College at Beyrout. 

The harbor swarmed with small boats push- 
ing out to meet the steamer, and the first 
person whom I recognized was Dr. Jessup 
swinging his handkerchief among a crew of 
Arab boatmen. If I were to say that the 
man in that boat was the prince of Ameri- 
can missionaries, probably no persons would 
respond ^'amen'^ more promptly than his 
brethren in the foreign work. In ten min- 
utes we were on shore, climbing the hill 
to Brother Jessup's residence. But no; we 
could not go to his house until we had been 
to see the handsome church in which he 
preaches, and where, last Sunday, he ad- 
ministered the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per to two hundred communicants. Then 
we must go into the new Sunday-school 
building erected by Mr. Dale as a memorial 
of a beloved child gone home to God. It is 
a gem; and when it is resounding with three 
hundred and sixty voices singing Christ's 
praises in Arabic, that room is worth a 



Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 133 

journey to Syria to see. One other build- 
ing must be visited, and that was the Print- 
ing House which turns out Arabic Bibles 
and Catechisms, and school-books and tracts 
and the vivacious newspapers edited by Dr. 
Eddy. Among the publications issued are 
''Twelve Sermons by D. L. Moody. '^ So 
charmed was one of the Greek priests in 
Beyrout with Brother Moody's discourses 
that he preached six of them to his own 
congregation, and the congregation were 
as much delighted with them as the preach- 
er ! Since that performance, the priest has 
gained a great reputation for originality 
and eloquence. 

Not far from the press-rooms is that little 
upper-chamber in which Dr. Vandyke trans- 
lated God's Word into Arabic. Only a few 
days previously I had stood in the cavern at 
Bethlehem in which St. Jerome had made 
the translation of the Latin Vulgate. In 
comparing the two places, ''the glory of the 
latter house excelleth.'' Dr. Vandyke him- 
self is now not only a Professor of Medicine 



134 The Nile to Norway. 

in the College, but of Astronomy also. I 
found the cheery old man in his observatory, 
busy with his telescope. I said to him — 
^'Well, Doctor, you may study the stars 
with this instrument, but you have given 
the Arabic-speaking nations a telescope that 
reaches into the heaven of heavens. ^^ 

The main College building stands on a 
height as commanding as ^^ Pardee Hall'' 
at Easton, Pennsylvania. In its reception- 
room hang the portraits of William A. Booth, 
William E. Dodge, S. B. Chittenden, and Dr. 
Post. These noble men are the Trustees of 
this noble institution. Adjoining the main 
building is another erected by the munifi- 
cence of Mr. Frederick Marquand. If my 
venerable friend could see that structure be- 
fore he ^' goes up higher '' he would be more 
sure than ever before that no investments 
pay such dividends as money consecrated to 
the Lord. The Medical College, with its fine 
lecture-rooms and apparatus, stands a little 
farther to the east. Dr. Post is busy in pre- 
paring a great work on the Flora of the 



Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 135 

Levant — a region tliat abounds in rare trees 
and flowers. My first visit to the College 
so delighted me that I went up again at 
five o^clock to attend the evening prayers. 
The one hundred and twenty students who 
were present reminded me of a similar gath- 
ering in old Princeton — except for the brown 
complexions and the red fez caps. They 
sang "Hold the Fort ^^ in Arabic, and one 
of the Faculty read the Scriptures and of- 
fered a prayer. I ventured on a brief speech 
to the bright fellows (some of whom have 
such names as " Amin Abdallah '' and " Ra- 
shid Haddad ''), and I never had a more en- 
thusiastic audience. There is only one Mus- 
sulman now in the College, but there would 
be many scores if the Faculty would consent 
to omit direct religious instruction; this they 
have wisely and firmly refused to do. At 
Dr. Jessup's table I had the privilege of 
meeting President Bliss, and the Professors, 
with several other friends. That American 
reunion with these beloved brethren — where 
every dish on the table tasted of home — gave 



136 The Nile to Norway. 

me the happiest hour I have passed in the 
Orient. 

Great as is the work being done by the 
College it does not surpass that which is be- 
ing wrought by the Female Seminary — in 
charge of Miss Jackson and her associates 
— which contains about one hundred and 
fifty pupils. A large number of them sang 
for me ^^ Wonderful Words of Love.^' In the 
room I observed a Syrian orphan-girl who is 
supported by five young girls in my own Sab- 
bath-school — which has also furnished one of 
the volumes for the Sabbath-schools of Syria. 
The Seminary charges a moderate tuition-fee 
for most of its pupils, and wisely too, for 
what costs nothing is held at too small a 
value. Other denominations beside our own 
are at work in Beyrout. The ''British Syr- 
ian Schools '' have nearly three thousand 
scholars in the whole country; while those 
under American control have four thousand 
two hundred and fifty scholars. The Ger- 
man Deaconesses of Kaiser werth are pro- 
viding for many orphans ; Miss Taylor has 



Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 137 

about fifty Moslem girls under her instruc- 
tion; and the Jesuits have an imposing 
structure into which they decoy as many 
as possible. The Greek Catholics are "run- 
ning an opposition '' to the Jesuits. 
* 

With a reverent gratitude I went into the 

Protestant Cemetery and stood beside the 
graves of Pliny Fisk and Dr. Eli Smith, 
the founders of this glorious Syrian Mission. 
The mustard-tree they planted has waxed 
strong and broad. To-day it can point to 
thirty-three missionaries, one hundred and 
fifty native laborers, nine hundred commu- 
nicants, seventy-three preaching stations, one 
hundred schools, and four thousand two hun- 
dred and fifty scholars — with a College that 
will make itself felt over the whole Orient. 
Who that reads such inspiring facts will not 
resolve to double his contributions to Foreign 
Missions ? 

I longed to spend more time at beautiful 
Beyrout and to climb the sides of Lebanon 
which are sprinkled thick with villages. But 
no other steamer will leave for Constantino- 



138 The Nile to Norway. *. 

pie in a fortnight, and I do not wish to miss 
the annual gathering of the missionaries that 
takes place next week on the Bosphorus. 
At the hour of sunset — when the blue Medi- 
terranean was burning with a crimson glow — 
we waved our adieux to Doctors Bliss and 
Jessup, and took our last look at those sa- 
cred buildings which ^* fling afar the sweet 
smell of Lebanon/' 



XII. 

CHIO—AND A VISIT TO EPHESUS. 

Steamer '' Espero" May 14. 

I^^N the evening of Monday our good 
^^ steamer sailed out of the harbor of 
beautiful Beyrout, with the setting sun 
kindling the peaks of Lebanon. Jerusalem 
means the past; Beyrout is the harbinger 
of a new day for Syria and the Levant. 
Its population has risen rapidly from thirty 
thousand to eighty thousand; already it is 
the centre of Christian influence in the Ori- 
ent. When the American Board turned over 
that Mission on Mount Lebanon to the Pres- 
byterian Church they gave us their crown- 
jewel. 

We laid one day at Cyprus, the scene 
of the first foreign mission ever under- 
taken by the apostles. Both the places in 
which Paul labored are now in ruins. I had 

139 



140 The Nile to Norway. 

hoped to get a good view of Patmos, but 
our steamer was behind time, and we passed 
it in the evening. By moonhght I saw only 
its dim shadowy outhnes; hke the wonderful 
Apocalypse that was there revealed to the 
apostle John, it was overhung with solemn 
mystery. But on no spot outside of Jeru- 
salem have I gazed with such a thrill as 
upon that lonely isle. 

Our steamer, loitering leisurely along over 
the most fascinating sea on the globe, re- 
quires seven days to go from Beyrout to 
Constantinople. On Friday morning at day- 
light we were off the ill-fated island of Scio 
— or ^' Chios,'' as it is called in the Acts 
of the Apostles. Our Captain kindly con- 
sented to land for an hour, in order to allow 
the passengers to examine the ruins of the re- 
cent terrible earthquake. Certainly no place 
has been the scene of such calamities during 
this century as the historic island of Chio. In 
1822 the Turks brutally massacred or carried 
into bondage forty thousand of its inhabitants. 
Only a handful were left. As soon as the 



Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 141 

island had become re-peopled and revived, an 
earthquake overthrew a large portion of its 
chief city. A few weeks ago came the third 
great calamity, which has excited such deep 
sympathy over the civilized world. 

The City of Scio lies close to the sea, at 
the base of a steep range of volcanic moun- 
tains. As we drew up into the harbor, we 
could see, from the ship^s deck, the desolation 
on the shore, extending even to the half- 
dozen neighboring villages. Arriving at the 
wharf, such a scene of havoc and of horror 
presented itself as I have never beheld! The 
market-place or square near the landing was 
covered with tents, in which the relief com- 
mittees and some of the surviving citizens 
were quartered. I saw two persons dressing 
themselves who had slept during the night 
on a pile of lumber. We walked through 
several streets that were heaped up with 
ruins to the depth of six feet ! Every house 
on both sides was a mass of mingled walls, 
rooms and roofs thrown into the wildest con- 
fusion; pieces of furniture were still protruding 



142 The Nile to Norway. 

from beneath chamber floors, and rafters were 
thrust out from the depths of cellars. Not 
a living creature was visible in a whole block 
that two months ago teemed with happy 
occupants. One minaret of a mosque was 
standing, while the buildings beside it were 
hurled into ruin. As far as I could judge, 
about half of the city is destroyed — or so 
shattered that a large expenditure will be 
required to restore them. Large numbers 
of dead bodies still lie buried under the 
debris. How or why poor Scio is to be 
rebuilt I cannot conceive. It would seem 
to be the height of hazardous folly to attempt 
to perpetuate a town which has suffered such 
calamities and is exposed to a repetition of 
earthquakes in all time to come. 

At noon of the same day we entered the 
superb bay of Smyrna — a city that is famous 
in the past as being the seat of one of the 
'' Seven Churches of Asia,'' but is now a busy 
commercial city, half European and half Asi- 
atic. A less interesting city I never entered; 
for beyond the tomb of the martyr Polycarp 



Chio— AND A Visit to Ephesus. 143 

there is not one relic of the past worth look- 
ing at. I did indeed see with great satisfac- 
tion a small mission-room for sailors on the 
quay, which bears the name of the ^^ Sea- 
men's Rest/' and is well stocked with news- 
papers, Bibles and Scripture-texts hung upon 
the walls. Some Christ-loving hearts have 
opened this safe harbor for tempted sailors 
in the midst of drinking saloons and tobacco 
shops. 

But if Smyrna is totally devoid of interest 
to anybody but a drug-merchant or a dealer 
m figs and fruits, there is a spot fifty miles 
from it that stands next to Jerusalem in the 
eyes of all students of the New Testament. 
Jerusalem is first, and then comes Ephesus. 
For five centuries it was one of the most 
superb cities of the Orient. Alexander the 
Great visited it, and sat for his portrait to 
Apelles, who was its chief painter. Xeno- 
phon marched through it, and Hannibal there 
met Antiochus. Cicero was entertained by 
its polished citizens, and Antony and Cleo- 
patra held their voluptuous revels there. 



144 The Nile to Norway. 

Close by its walls stood one of the seven 
wonders of the world — the magnificent Tem- 
ple of Diana. Around no one city outside 
of Judea are the names of the apostles Paul 
and John so closely entwined as about that 
city to which Paul addressed that Epistle 
that will be read while humanity endures. 
Several of my fellow passengers were as 
keen as myself for a visit to Ephesus. It 
lies about fifty miles from Smyrna in the 
valley of Cayster, and on the line of a rail- 
way which a British company have con- 
structed to Aidin. The daily train leaves 
in the morning, and our only chance was 
to get there during the afternoon after our 
arrival. So the moment that our steamer 
had anchored inside of the breakwater, two 
of our company were despatched to the rail- 
way station. The superintendent agreed to 
furnish to our party of seventeen a special 
train for one hundred dollars. The bargain 
was soon struck; a locomotive was ready in 
a few minutes with three luxurious cars, and 
we were soon whirling away through the 



Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 145 

vineyards and mulberry groves that lie* south- 
east of Smyrna. The train made no halt, 
and in one hour and a half we were at the 
little Turkish village of Ayasolook. 

A half mile from this village lie the ruins 
of the famous city. We passed a line of 
broken columns of an aqueduct — on the top 
of each one of which was perched a stork upon 
its huge nest of twigs. Then we came to a 
mosque which had once been a Christian 
church, and which was largely built of the 
granite and marbles of ancient Ephesus. A 
little way beyond in an open field — in a large 
excavation, he strewn around the broken 
fragments of marble Ionic columns. These 
are everything that is left of the once proud 
Temple of Diana. 

These would never have been discovered 
— a dozen feet under ground — but for the 
persistent courage of Mr. Wood, the English 
antiquary. After long search he found the 
spot where the mighty edifice once stood 
that stretched three hundred and fifty feet 
by one hundred and sixty — a poem in white 



146 The Nile to Norway. 

marble ! In its dazzling splendor it may well 
have aroused the pride of the Ephesians to 
cry out ^' great is Diana/' and it required 
no small intrepidity in Paul and Timothy 
to assail such a citadel of superstition. 

A half mile away we came to the massive 
ruins of the '' Stadium '^ — and beyond them 
we reached the most intensely interestir\g 
spot of all. Every reader of the Scripture 
narrative will remember how, during the 
tumult raised by Paul, the people of Ephesus 
rushed into the ^^ theatre. '^ Not an enclosed 
building, but a huge amphitheatre walled 
around, on the side of Mount Prion, and 
open to the sky. It was to the actual re- 
mains of that theatre that our guide con- 
ducted us. The seats — that would contain 
60,000 spectators — all disappeared centuries 
ago, but the shape of the theatre and a 
portion of its rear walls remain. The ruins 
of its magnificent white marble entrance are 
still there — some of them beautifully sculpt- 
ured, and some stones covered by Greek 
inscriptions. My heart leaped quick when 



Chio— AND A Visit to Ephesus. 147 

I thouglit — ^here by this vast auditorium the 
great Apostle once stood ! These soHd rocks 
of Mount Prion once echoed to that tran- 
scendent voice ! Over this hill John has 
walked, and Timothy and many of those 
early saints; somewhere near at hand Aquila 
and Priscilla taught ApoUos ^'the way of 
God more perfectly. '^ I climbed around the 
rocky hillside and examined the ruins of the 
'* Odeon," and of the *^ Gymnasium/' and saw 
the fabled cave of the seven sleepers. Every 
few steps my feet struck against sculptured 
marbles lying in the grass. On every side 
was utter, silent desolation. The ruins of 
Baalbeck are not more deserted. Yet the 
whole area was to me instinct with glorious 
life. It was enough that I was at actual 
Ephesus — the Ephesus of Paul a?nd Apollos 
— the Ephesus in which the Beloved Disciple 
closed his long life, the city to which he 
sent the inspired message in the Apocalypse ! 
We walked four miles around and over 
the ruins of the wonderful city. The moon 
was already rising over the hills toward 



148 - The Nile to Norway. 

Sardis before we got back to our train. 
Physically we were weary and hungry, and 
glad to set our faces toward Smyrna, which 
we reached at half past nine o'clock. But 
what were hunger and fatigue — even ten- 
fold greater — when we remembered that we 
had been at one of the great fountain-heads 
of divinely inspired thought and action for 
all coming time ? We had been at the very 
spot where ^'for the space of three years 
Paul had ceased not to warn every one, night 
and day, with tears/' for Jesus' sake. We 
thanked God, and went to bed tired and 
happy. 



XIII. 

ON THE BOSPHORUS, 

Constantinople, May 20. 

I ^ROM Smyrna, our Austrian Lloyd vessel, 
-** the '^Espero,'' steamed away again, up 
the Bay, and out into the enchanting Med- 
iterranean. We were as crowded as ever. 
The old sheikh from Damascus, whose ha- 
rem was partitioned oflf by shawls on the 
saloon-deck, had to crowd his veiled women 
into smaller compass to make room for some 
other polygamous households. The menag- 
erie of orientals on the main deck received 
some new accessions, including a half dozen 
sheep and lambs waiting to be sacrificed. 

Our steamer, just as it entered the Darda- 
nelles, ran close to the Asiatic shore, and we 
were able to see the heaps of earth thrown 
up by Dr. Schleimann on the site of *' Ilium,'' 
the mounds of Achilles and Ajax, and the 

14:9 



150 The Nile to Norway. 

harbor from which Eneas set sail. Just be- 
fore reaching Constantinople we passed San 
StefFano, where the Russian army laid for 
several days in full view of the city and 
within an hour's march. *' Why did not you 
go in ? '^ inquired a friend of mine here, of 
the Russian commander. His answer was, 
*' It was not because we could not go in, 
or were afraid to go in; but the time had 
not come to do that.'' 

I do not wonder that the Turk clings as 
long and as fast as he can to so magnifi- 
cent a possession. For with its million of 
inhabitants, its peerless mosques, its palaces, 
its unrivalled beauty of situation, its pres- 
tige and its power, Constantinople wears a 
more imperial air than any city on this con- 
tinent. It is the very perfection of semi- 
barbaric splendor. Yet with all its gor- 
geous domes and minarets on the heights, 
and all its huge iron-clad s anchored in the 
''Golden Horn," and all the fine equipages 
which its Pashas drive through the Rue de 
Pera, Constantinople is only half civilized. 



On the Bosphorus. 151 

It has no educated class, no literature, no 
science, no high tone of honor; the sub- 
stance of it is semi-barbarism thinly ve- 
neered with external courtesy and some 
modern mechanical improvements. Enghsh 
engineers have come here and built rail- 
ways for the Sultan. One of them, a sub- 
terranean railway leading up the steep hill 
from the Grolden Horn to the heights of 
Pera, is a blessing to us travellers. It 
saves us a tiresome climb up through nar- 
row and abominably filthy streets to our 
hotels. There is also a line of horse-cars 
running along the water-side clear up to 
the Sultan's palace at Dalmabatchi. 

We landed on Monday morning from the 
steamer in row-boats. Our boat was ap- 
proached by a police-boat; we held up our 
passports and were told to row on. When 
we reached the custom-house wharf my 
dragoman unknown to me slipped a franc 
into the inspector's hand, and (as his eye 
is about the size of a franc) he passed my 
vaUse without opening. A friend of mine, 



152 The Nile to Norway. 

on leaving the city,, had his baggage exam- 
ined, and he was obhged to pay a heavy 
duty on everything he had bought in Con- 
stantinople and was carrying homewards ! 
That is a Turk's method of encouraging us 
foreigners to purchase the showy knicknacks 
which are for sale here in the celebrated 
bazaars. After we landed, the trunks of 
our party were tied together, and one of 
the athletic Constantinople porters carried 
the enormous load up the steep hill to our 
hotel on the Rue de Pera! They are won- 
derful specimens of muscle. One of them 
can carry two barrels of flour at a single 
load; but you must get out of the track of 
these human pack-horses, or be run down 
by them, for they claim ^*the right of 
way'' against all comers. 

Some cities grow upon you by a constant 
revelation of new beauties; others produce 
their highest impression at first sight. I 
have hitherto stood up for Edinburgh as 
unequalled for picturesqueness of situation; 
but when I saw the Capital of Islam, en- 




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On the Bosphorus. 153 

throned on its lofty hills, and crowned with 
its domes and palaces and minarets, I was 
ready to admit that, seen from the water, 
it is the most magnificent city on the globe. 
Some of the enchantment vanishes after you 
land; for many of the streets are narrow 
and filthy, and the city is a rare combina- 
tion of palace and poverty, of splendor and 
shabbiness. The famous Mosque of St. So- 
phia was the first spot towards which I 
turned my steps, and with its antique gran- 
deurs all of my readers are familiar from 
scores of descriptions. I was still more im- 
pressed by the Mosque of Suleiman the 
Magnificent — which is the masterpiece of 
Saracenic architecture. In the same enclos- 
ure with this gorgeous Mosque are four Mos- 
lem academies, a hospital, a charity -kitchen 
for the poor, and a school for instruction 
in medicine. 

One of the finest views I have gained 
was from the heights of Scutari, across the 
Bosphorus, and above the famous hospital 
of Florence Nightingale. But I saw some- 



154 , The Nile to Norway. 

thing grander there than domes or palaces. 
Upon those beautiful heights stands our 
American Female Seminary, or ''Home'^; 
and around it reside our faithful mission- 
aries Dr. George W. Wood and the Doctors 
Bhss and the veteran Dr. Riggs. I spent 
a night with Brother Wood in his dehght- 
ful home, surrounded with American faces, 
American books and American scenes of 
consecrated toil. Need I confess that a sharp 
twinge of home-sickness kept me awake that 
night ? 

Early the next morning I was out among 
the flowers, and enjoying the early pink 
bloom of the ''Judas trees,'' and the view 
from the balcony of the seminary. The 
building is new and commodious — a sort of 
second edition of '' Mouht Holyoke.'' About 
fifty young Armenian, Turkish, Greek, and 
Bulgarian girls are in the institution, which 
is under the superintendence of Mrs. Wil- 
liams. I conducted the service of morning 
worship in the chapel; and but for the bru- 
nette tinge of countenances, I might have 



On the Bosphorus. 155 

supposed that I was addressing a group of 
*' Packer '' girls in my own beloved Brooklyn. 
They understood nearly every word — for the 
exercises of the Seminary are conducted in 
EngHsh — and a more animated audience I 
have seldom addressed. Those churches and 
Sunday-schools in the United States that are 
contributing to the support of the Scutari 
^'Home'^ are making a royal investment of 
their money. 

But if my national pride was up when I 
visited the Home, it was yesterday exalted 
beyond measure when I went up the Bos- 
phorus to Robert College, It stands on a 
lofty elevation, at about the finest point on 
the Bosphorus — -just where that stream comes 
the nearest to rivalling our imperial Hudson. 
Opposite the College stands one of the many 
palaces of the Sultan flanked by the green 
^'Valley of Sweet Waters'' — and just beside 
the College are the ancient fortresses erected 
by Mahmoud in 1453. At that point Darius 
bridged the Bosphorus for his Persian in- 
vaders. But my honored friends, the late 



156 The Nile to Norway. 

Christoplier Robert and Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, 
made a nobler invasion of Turkey when 
they conceived and constructed this Ameri- 
can College to let the daylight into the 
dungeons of Moslem superstition. The build- 
ing is imposing without, and a model of con- 
venience within. The Yice-President, Dr. 
Long, took me through the museum, geologi- 
cal cabinets, recitation-rooms, and dormito- 
ries, and then introduced me to over two 
hundred young men assembled in the large 
study-hall. Ten nationalities were represent- 
ed there — Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Jew- 
ish, Russian, Syrian, Sclave, and Bulgarian. 
They reminded me of a crowd of Yale or 
Princetonians, especially when they began to 
^'demonstrate.'' I wish I dared to describe 
the enthusiasm with which these young men 
received every allusion I made to the '^new 
ideas '' which that American College is giv- 
ing to them, and which they are to scatter 
through the Orient. I do not wonder that 
when the Russian army went home three 
years ago through the Bosphorus the Im- 



On the Bosphorus. 157 

perial Guards came out on the decks and 
gave three rousing cheers for Robert College ! 

But that noble institution requires and 
must have more room for its increasing work. 
It needs a new building for lecture-halls, 
chapel, and museum, and to have the pres- 
ent building used for study rooms and dor- 
mitories. That edifice ought to be erected, 
by American money, within two years, and 
when it is completed it should bear the 
noble and well- won name of Hamlin Hall. 
The institution was founded by Christopher 
Robert's munificence, but it was born in 
Cyrus Hamlin's brain. 

I count it a precious privilege that dur- 
ing my present visit to Constantinople the 
annual meeting of the American mission- 
aries of Western Turkey is being held— at 
the ''Bible House'' in Stamboul, which is 
our American "Embassy." The Bythinian 
Evangelical Union, composed of native pas- 
tors and teachers, is also in session. I have 
been listening with deep interest to the re- 
ports made by our missionaries of their last 



158 The Nile to Norway. 

year's hard and honest work — from Khar- 
poot to Constantinople. When they kindly 
invited me to address them and the Evan- 
gelical Union, I felt how much better was 
their faithful work than any feeble words 
I could speak in regard to it. This week 
alone has convinced me of the solid value 
of Foreign Missions. 

I am also as strongly convinced that the 
Sultan is simply a nuisance on European 
soil. The Turks cherish with superstitious 
pride the breach in the old wall of Con- 
stantinople through which their ancestors 
marched in four hundred and thirty years 
ago. I will go a great way to see the 
breach through which they shall march out 

The present Sultan resides in the small 
palace of Yisdil, on the summit of a hill, 
and surrounded by a superb park that 
reaches to the water's edge. Every Friday 
he comes down through this walled enclos- 
ure and rides a few steps to a small mosque 
near the gate. A large crowd gathers weekly 
to gaze at the caliph of over one hundred 



On the Bosphorus. 159 

millions of Mussulmen; but he is careful to 
trust himself outside of his own walls for 
as few moments as possible. I was urged 
to go and look at the Pope of Islam to- 
day; but I do not care to brave this raw, 
chilly air for an hour simply to see an in- 
significant-looking man ride on horseback 
an insignificant distance to say his prayers. 
One of these days the caliphate will cross 
the Bosphorus and ''head^^ towards the 
Arabia whence it originally sprung. The 
doom of Turkish supremacy is near at 
hand. 

There is an increasing party in Asia who 
wish to oust the Sultan and put an Ara- 
bian descendant of Mohammed into the 
caliphate. Other great changes will come; 
but the grandest revolution this superb and 
wicked city will ever see will be when Pro- 
testant missionaries begin to proclaim the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ under the domes of 
St. Sophia and of ''Suleiman/^ God speed 
the day! 



XIV. 

ATHENS, 

Hotel Mrangers, May 27. 

T WAS not sorry to quit Constantinople 
-*" with its chilly air, filthy streets, and 
steep hills, for bright, clean, tasteful Athens 
— with its marvellous memorials of the past, 
and its cheerful tokens for the future. My 
stay here has been rendered all the more 
agreeable by the comforts of this Hotel des 
Etrangers on the Palace Square; it is quite 
a model in its good appointments and home- 
like qualities. What a relief also is the rid- 
dance from a tribe of guides and importunate 
hangers-on about the doorways. Athens is 
a small compact city, and every intelligent 
visitor can find his own way. The city of 
the past, whose glorious ruins lie on or south 
of the Acropolis, is twenty-five centuries old; 
the city of the present, which lies north and 

160 



Athens. 161 

east of the Acropolis, is for the most part, 
about twenty-five years old. These new and 
elegant houses have just a trifle too much of 
white, cream color and peach-bloom; for, with 
the glaring white hmestone of the pavements, 
the effect almost blinds the eye. Added to 
this is an atmosphere as clear as crystal, 
through which the sun-rays pour down with 
unhindered brilliancy. 

As soon as I had estabhshed my quarters 
at the hotel, I was in a carriage with my 
friend. Judge Barringer (the coUeague of 
Judge Batcheller in the '' International 
Courf of Egypt), for a drive to Mars' 
HiU. We climbed up the dozen steps hewn 
in the solid rocks, the very steps the Apos- 
tle must have trod — and found ourselves on 
that bald mass of rock on which the origi- 
nal Areopagus held its sessions. Standing 
there, within pistol-shot of the Parthenon, 
with what telling effect could Paul exclaim, 
"God that made the world and all things 
therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven 
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made 



162 The Nile to Norway. 

with hands.'' As the colossal statue of Min- 
erva Promachus was in full view, he could 
also remind them that the Invisible Jehovah 
was not to be graven in the images carved 
by ^^art and man's device." As there are 
only three spots in Palestine on which we 
can feel assured that our Lord ever set his 
sacred feet, so there are just two on which 
Paul must have trod; one of them is the 
rock of Mars' Hill, and the other is the mar- 
ble pavement of the Portico, through which 
is the only entrance to the space around the 
Parthenon. He must certainly have climbed 
the magnificent avenue of the Propylea which 
led to the summit of the Acropolis, and from 
that lofty height — among the masterpieces of 
Phidias — he must have gazed down upon the 
city of the Yiolet Crown in all its flashing 
splendor. 

About the Parthenon and its widowed sis- 
ter beside it, the Erectheum, I hesitate to add 
another line. I have visited them at the 
early dawn, and sat beside them at the sun- 
set; I have gazed at them from Lycabettus, 



Athens. 163 

and from the ship's deck at sea, and every 
fresh view only increased the enchantment. 
When Pericles had seen the last frieze 
placed on the Parthenon, and the last ex- 
quisite moulding carved around the door- 
way of the Erectheum, he had seen the 
consummate perfection of all that man can 
accomplish in the horizontal styles of archi- 
tecture. Since that time the world has seen 
the perpendicular in its perfection in many 
a Gothic cathedral, but not one new idea has 
been added to the Doric and the Ionic in 
three and twenty centuries. That marvel- 
lous sense of beauty which the Greeks of that 
age possessed wrought itself out in every- 
thing it touched. 

Our American missionary here, the Rev. 
Mr. Sampson, took me to the old '' Ceram- 
icus '^ near the temple of Theseus, and showed 
me the tombs and monuments which have 
been lately excavated. There I saw the 
actual charred bones preserved in urns, and 
the family tombs that go back to the era 
of Plato and Socrates. On one marble tomb 



164 The Nile to Norway. 

a father and mother are taking leave of 
the httle daughter who was buried beneath, 
and a pet dog is jumping up wistfully against 
her as if he would detain her from going. 
Nearly every scene on the monuments rep- 
resents the farewells of the departed to their 
kindred; the sculptures all reveal Greek gen- 
ius. I read one inscription which contains 
this passage, ''My body, my mortal part lies 
here in the earth, but my immortal part, 
my soul, is in the keeping of the Great 
Treasure -keeper.'' Perhaps the man who 
composed this epitaph had been one of the 
listeners to the great Apostle, and had caught 
some glimpses into the better life beyond. 
The wonderfully interesting discoveries made 
by these excavations in the Ceramicus, and 
also the unearthing of a supposed temple of 
Esculapius, just beside the Acropolis, prove 
what valuable treasures are yet buried up 
all along the Piraeus road, and the banks 
of the Ilissus. 

The most prominent residents in Athens 
now are Dr. Schleimann and his brave and 



Athens. 165 

genial Grecian wife; their house, near the 
Palace, is the most superb in the city. I 
shall ever remember gratefully their cordial 
hospitalities, and their enthusiastic talk over 
the relics of Troy, which they showed to me 
in a large lower hall of their mansion. The 
Doctor has just returned from a visit to the 
Troad, and his indomitable energy will soon 
be delving among some other buried cities 
in the Levant. The frescoes on his drawing- 
room ceiling represent the education of a 
group of children in digging — until in the 
last scenes a group of romping cherubs are 
seen carrying off the relics from the ruins of 
Mycene. So intensely classical are the good 
Doctor and his young wife that they have 
named their two children ^' Andromache '^ 
and *^ Agamemnon." This reproduction of 
ancient names all over Athens is sometimes 
quite startling. For example, the present 
''Areopagus,'' a superior City Court, with 
its fifteen Judges, holds its sessions at the 
corner of Sophocles and Aristides streets. 
Every new edifice is so constructed as to 



166 The Nile to Norway. 

preserve the salient features of Greek arch- 
itecture; and the Greek merchants who now 
stand at the head of commerce all over 
the Levant are sending home their wealth 
to adorn and beautify Athens. The time is 
at hand when visitors from all lands will 
come hither to see the city of the present 
as Avell as the matchless remains of the city 
of the past. 

From my window every day I see the 
King George 1st and his popular Queen 
driving by from their palace, a few rods 
distant. He has a manly, intelligent face, 
and she has a sweet countenance and a look 
of practical and domestic common sense that 
is very winning. During the late scare about 
a threatened war with Turkey, the Queen 
joined a company of ladies from the town, 
in sewing garments for the soldiers. She 
worked as industriously as the rest of them, 
and one day, when her sewing-machine broke, 
she took it up in her arms and carried it out 
into another room to be mended. Royalty 
all over Europe is becoming republicanized 



Athens. 167 

in dress and demeanor; it is only such half- 
civilized potentates as the Sultan and the 
Shah of Persia who affect the old nonsense 
of personal sacredness. The present king is 
a brother of the Princess of Wales, and a 
staunch Protestant. His private chaplain, 
Rev. Mr. Peterson, is a fervently evangeli- 
cal man; on the morning of ^^ Ascension 
Day'' I heard him deliver a most eloquent 
and spiritual discourse in the Chapel of the 
Palace. 

Protestantism is as yet weak in numbers 
here. The Greek Church is the national 
religion, and has been offensively bigoted 
in past years. I have looked into the Met- 
ropolitan Cathedral, and found it very difi&cult 
to distinguish any real difference between its 
pomps and pageantries, its candles and crosses 
and incense, and confessionals, and pictures, 
and those in any average Popish Mass-house. 
Romanism and the Greek Church are twin 
institutions : intelligent Musselmen judge of 
Christianity from these two, and they, very 
naturally, conclude that the religion called 



168 The Nile to Norway. 

Christian is simply a system of idolatry and 
image- worship. This is the chief hindrance 
now in reaching the followers of Mohammed 
with the pure Gospel. They judge of the 
truth by its counterfeit. 

We have a brave little Mission here under 
the charge of the American Presbyterian 
Church, South, Their missionaries are Mr. 
and Mrs. Kalopothakes (formerly Miss Kyle) 
and the Rev. T. R. Sampson, from Norfolk. 
He is a most scholarly and energetic young 
minister, the son of the late Dr. Sampson of 
Virginia. They are assisted by Mr. An- 
toniades and Mr. Liaoutsi here, and by Mr. 
Michaelides, who preaches at Yolos, and 
Mr. Egyptiades, who has charge at Thes- 
salonica. A few weeks ago they organized 
their first Presbytery, and named it ^'The 
Presbytery of the Greek Evangelical Church.'^ 
Here in Athens their place of worship is a 
plain, neat structure near the Arch of Hadri- 
an. But these brave, earnest workers de- 
serve a new church-edifice in a more cen- 
tral position. I attended the morning service 



Athens. • 169 

on Sunday; the house was filled by a most 
intelligent-looking congregation, and the dis- 
course was delivered by one of the native 
ministers. It seemed primitive and apostolic 
to hear the Greek Testament read from the 
pulpit, and when the congregation sang a 
Greek hymn to the same sweet American 
air as "What a Friend We have in Jesus, '^ 
I could not keep back the tears. Blessing? 
on this noble mission under the walls of the 
Acropolis! Once more the "men of Athens'' 
can hear Paul's gospel-message in Paul's own 
tongue. The Presbyterians of the United 
States ought to give a place in their prayers 
— and their purses also — to this admirable 
enterprise in the old birthplace of art and 
philosophy. 

I have enjoyed every hour in Athens. 
Last Tuesday I climbed Mount Pentelicus, 
and from its summit looked right down on 
the famous battle-field of Marathon. It is 
as smooth as a race-course, and so small 
that Miltiades with his ten thousand Athe- 
nians could cover the whole front against 



170 The Nile to Norway. 

ten times as many Persians. On my way 
back I rode through groves of classic ohve 
and pine, and green vineyards. It seemed 
as if I might meet Sophocles going out to 
meditate a new tragedy, or Anacreon to com- 
pose a new song for the vine-dressers. The 
air was instinct with the memories and glories 
of the past. This little land of Attica once 
ruled the world with its genius. On the 
ruins of that wonderful commonwealth — after 
long dark centuries of ignorance and obscur- 
ity — a new Athens and a new Greece have 
sprung up. No land on the Continent of 
Europe has a stronger claim on our hearts, 
or excites a more thrilling hope for its fu- 
ture than the land in which Pericles builded, 
and Plato thought, and Phidias carved, and 
Paul proclaimed the Gospel of eternal life. 



XV. 

SUNRISE ON THE PARTHENON 

Athens, May 28. 

A T four o'clock yesterday morning I 
-^^-*" aroused my fellow-lodger at the Ho- 
tel des Etrangers for a tramp up the Acro- 
polis in time to catch the sunrise. The 
shadows were still lingering in the clefts of 
old Hymettus as we hurried across the open 
space between the Arch of Hadrian and 
the modest chapel of the American Mission. 
Rounding the hillside, we pass the ruined 
Theatre of Dionysius, with its forty carved 
marble seats — all empty. I would give some- 
thing to know from which one of those tiers 
Socrates rose up to answer the gibes of the 
comedian. A httle further on, we see the 
square-cut ''Bema'^ from which Demosthenes 
once thundered. Let us be thankful that 
Lord Elgin could not kidnap that for the 

171 



172 The Nile to Norway. 

British Museum. The smooth roadway leads 
around the south side of the Acropohs and 
close by the rocky spur of Mars^ Hill. We 
see the actual steps in the rock by which 
Paul went up, and the spot where he must 
have stood when, within ten minutes, he de- 
livered the sublimest speech that ever stirred 
the air of classic Greece. 

We had to hammer pretty loudly on the 
gate to arouse the porter who keeps the en- 
trance to the Propylea. Those walls once 
trembled to a louder alarm, when the ex- 
plosion of a magazine sent the columns of 
that splendid structure flying in the air. 
Powder seldom wrought more mischief; for 
that ascending vestibule of richly sculptured 
Pentelic marble (which cost two millions of 
dollars and which was adorned with the 
statues of Phidias) was one of the marvels 
of Athenian magnificence. What a gorgeous 
spectacle it must have been when the Pana- 
thenaic procession swept up through that 
vestibule from the Sacred Way, with its 
trains of chariots and waving branches of 



Sunrise on the Parthenon. 173 

the olive and the pme ! Nearly a dozen 
of the Doric columns yet remain. Across 
the two central ones still hangs the solid 
lintel, twenty-two feet long and four feet 
in thickness. To have lifted that enormous 
block of marble to that position must have 
been no ordinary feat of engineering; but 
of far more interest to me than the columns 
is the pavement beneath them, worn smooth 
by the ceaseless tread of more than three 
and twenty centuries. Upon those identical 
slabs of white marble Pericles and Plato, 
Aristotle and Demosthenes have set their 
feet; the famous men of Rome — Caesar, Pom- 
pey, Cicero, and Seneca — have trod there. 
Paul himself undoubtedly has walked there. 
The famous scholars of our times have gone 
in there. In fact, there is no other small 
¥!pot on this round globe which has been 
pressed by the feet of so many of the mighty 
men of genius as the six square yards of 
that Portico of the Propylea. 

We had no time to stop and moral- 
ize, for the sun was just beginning to 



174 The Nile to Norway. 

peep over the northern end of Hymettus. 
A streak of his rays was touching the 
heights of Egina and Salamis. At the east- 
ern brow of the Acropohs the late Queen 
Amaha built up a "Bellevue/^ or platform 
of stonework, from which a view can be 
got sheer down into the modern city, which 
lies upon that side of the sacred mount. We 
hasten to that ^'coigne of vantage'' and look 
westward. The first rays of the sun are just 
kindling on the brown columns of the Par- 
thenon. They are browned now by the hand 
of Time and the storms of over twenty cen- 
turies; but what they were when Pericles 
first set them there, in their flashing splen- 
dor, what imagination can conceive or pen 
describe? It will always remain an enigma 
that within a single century Grecian art 
and philosophy should have flowered out in 
the most consummate of their productions 
of genius and then straightway ceased to 
bloom again! All the greatest achievements 
of Athenian brains were wrought between 
the battles of Marathon and Cheronea, and 



Sunrise on the Parthenon. 175 

that space does not cover more than the 
lives of a father and son, provided that 
they both hved seventy years. The only 
answer to this problem is that it seem^ to 
be God^s plan to illuminate this world not 
by single stars, but by constellations. 

After watching the golden sunlight for a 
few moments on the Parthenon, we walk on, 
amid heaps of broken columns and shattered 
friezes, to the northern brow of the Acrop- 
olis. A guard walks behind us, perhaps to 
see that we do not pocket a stray metope 
or triglyph; for since the Acropolis has been 
so plundered nobody is trusted there alone. 
A sly Britisher was detected, a while ago, 
in tossing rare bits of marble over the walls, 
which an accomplice was as slyly picking up 
down below. Let us be .thankful, however, 
that neither Time nor Turk, nor Lord Elgin 
himself has ever succeeded in spoiling the 
exquisite northern colonnade and doorway 
of the Erectheum. Those columns are the 
perfection of the Ionic order. The carvings 
around that ''Gate Beautiful'' are the con- 



176 The Nile to Norway. 

summate masterpiece of delicate Greek art. 
No human hands ever excelled that work- 
manship. There is a mass of exquisite 
moulding and of delicate ^'egg-and-anchor'' 
ornamentation, that looks more like lace- 
work cut in ivory than any carving of or- 
dinary marble. All the finest Ionic struct- 
ures in the world for the last two thousand 
years have been only the copies of what 
those Greek wonder-workers wrought on 
that end of that little Erectheum within a 
single decade. They struck perfection at 
once, and all subsequent generations have 
done nothing but try to imitate their handi- 
work. 

The rocky summit of the Acropolis is one 
mass of picturesque ruin. Of the forty-six 
superb columns of the Parthenon less than 
one-half are left standing. These are sadly 
marred; some of them snapped off in the 
middle. The broken fragments of the col- 
umns which were blown to pieces by the 
powder explosion caused by a Venetian 
oombshell, in 1687, lie scattered all over 



Sunrise on the Parthenon. 177 

the hill-top. I dimbed over piles of sculpt- 
ure on which the workmen of Pericles had 
made their eyes ache; but mine ached still 
worse to see such marvellous productions 
dashed into destruction. Yet, after all the 
havoc that time and storm and shell and 
invading enemies have wrought, the Par- 
thenon and the Erectheum still remain as 
incomparably the most magnificent ruins on 
the face of the earth. The sun that shone 
on them yesterday morning has never yet 
shone on their equal. 

But, while we are on the Acropolis, let 
us take a glimpse of the Athens which 
stretches around us to the north and east. 
There is a bright day-dawning of promise 
in this beautiful city, with its broad, clean 
streets, elegant Parisian mansions, in imita- 
tion of Attic architecture, and with its showy 
Academy, and University, and public schools. 
There are seventy thousand people here now. 
"When Parliament is in session, there will 
be many more. Down in that plain building 
on the corner of Sophocles and Aristides 



17S The Nile to Norway. 

Streets, the highest court of the city, still 
called the ^' Areopagus '^ will meet to-day. 
That large structure, surrounded by a fine 
park, is the Palace of King George the 
First. 

While in cost, and adornment, it befits the 
modesty of a young kingdom, it contains 
some beautiful apartments. Upon its walls 
figures the fight at Navarino; and there are 
portraits of Capo DTstria, and of Lord 
Byron who half redeemed the last months 
of his pitiable career by his devotion to the 
deliverance of Grreece. Around the palace 
stretches a fine garden which is thrown open 
to the people every day. 

Looking towards the Ilissus — which at this 
season is shrunk to a rivulet, — we see the 
fourteen surviving columns of the Temple 
of Jupiter. When the whole one hundred 
and twenty -four were standing — crowned 
with their Corinthian capitals — that structure 
must have been one of the most magnificent 
on the globe. Not far from these imposing 
ruins is the ancient Stadium, on whose race- 



Sunrise on the Parthenon. 179 

course, the Olympic games were celebrated. 
It is six hmidred feet in length and one hun- 
dred in breadth; we can still see the ter- 
raced sides on whose marble seats, over for- 
ty thousand Athenians once sat, and cheered 
the victors in the games. Paul had such 
encounters in his eye when he exhorted the 
racers for an heavenly crown to ^'so run 
that they might obtain.'^ 

Let us turn to the opposite side of the 
Acropolis, and below us, near the road to 
the Pireus stands the Temple of Theseus 
— still in such perfect preservation that it 
scarcely shows the ravages of twenty cen- 
turies. As one looks at that exquisite Doric 
structure, with its columns and roof still com- 
plete, he can form some conception of what 
Athens must have been in the days of its 
matchless glory. 

Of that ancient glory only a few other 
splendid fragments remain. The Parthe- 
non is shattered. The Stadium is deserted. 
Plato's Academy is now a private gentle- 
man's garden. The tomb of Socrates no man 



180 The Nile to Norway. 

knoweth to this day. But as I descended 
from the Acropolis, and passed by the im- 
movable rock of Mars' Hill on which the 
great Apostle once stood, I said to myself, 
— the glory of this world passeth away, but 
like that rock, the word of the Lord endureth 
forever ! 



XVI. 

FROM ATHENS TO THE TYROL, 

Salzburg, June 8. 

^ I ^HE last instalment of my twenty -one 
^ days of cruising over the blue waters 
of the Mediterranean was from Athens to 
Yenice. We left Athens at &ve o'clock on 
the ** Austrian Lloyd'' steamer Minerva, and 
sailed out over the same waters which wit- 
nessed the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis. As 
the Acropolis and the Areopagus sank slow- 
ly out of sight, I felt that I was looking 
for the last time on the last spot trodden 
by Paul that I might ever see on earth. 
Early next morning we were off the rugged 
coasts of old Sparta; by noon we ran in close 
to the small town of Navarino, famous as the 
scene of the furious fight between the Greeks 
and the Turks in the war for Hellenistic in- 
dependence. That whole voyage from Athens 

181 



182 The Nile to Norway. 

led over memorable scenes of conflict; for at 
seven in the evening we passed the bay in 
which Don John, of Austria, fought the bat- 
tle of Lepanto, which was one of ''the fif- 
teen decisive battles of the world/' By mid- 
night we were at Arta — the ancient Actium 
where Augustus Caesar routed Antony and 
Cleopatra and secured the imperial crown 
of Rome. Zante, with its picturesque little 
city and surrounding olive-gardens and cur- 
rant-plantations, shone brightly in the even- 
ing sunlight. Then came Cephalonia, and 
the rocky isle of Ithaca which gave birth 
to Ulysses — and an euphonious name to the 
New York village which ''Cornell^' is mak- 
ing famous. Next morning we anchored close 
before the two castles in the harbor of Corfu. 
As I walked through the quaint old town, 
and inhaled the soft balmy atmosphere I did 
not wonder that Napoleon had pronounced 
the climate of Corfu to be the loveliest 
in the world. The steward of our steamer 
brought oif several baskets of oranges fresh- 
ly picked from the trees with the leaves 



From Athens to the Tyrol. 183 

sticking to the luscious fruit. He told me 
that the price was about one cent apiece; 
they were very fine, but I have found no 
oranges in the Mediterranean which equal 
those of Florida. 

From Corfu, we had nearly two days of 
placid, dreamy voyaging over the smooth 
waters of the Adriatic; and my long cruise 
of two months from Marseilles ended in the 
harbor of Trieste. Like Marseilles, Trieste 
is a bustling, commercial city, full of bright 
cream-colored warehouses, stores, and man- 
sions, with many grove-embowered villas on 
the surrounding heights. Trieste is the head- 
quarters of the ^^ Austrian Lloyd's'' line of 
steamers; and after spending more than a 
fortnight on their decks I am happy to vol- 
unteer my testimony to their excellent man- 
agement — with one shabby exception. On 
that Thursday night they packed a crowd 
of passengers into so absurdly small a steam- 
er for Venice, that many from the first cabin 
were obliged to he all night upon the deck; 
The churlish master of the boat could not 



184 The Nile to Norway. 

understand English, and so he lost the bene- 
fit of many compliments that were paid him. 
But if the accommodations of the cramped 
steamer were conducive to early rising, we 
had our compensation. At day-dawn what 
a view saluted my vision as I came on deck ! 
All over the glassy Adriatic were floating the 
fishermen's boats with their red sails — such as 
we see in every Venetian picture — and before 
us in the morning light rose the domes and 
the Campanile of Venice. Gondolas swarmed 
about our steamer as we dropped anchor off 
the Doge's old palace, and in fifteen min- 
utes we were paddling under the charming 
old Rialto. ''After all,'' said an English fel- 
low-traveller to me, ''Venice is the most 
captivating city in the world." I demurred 
to this — for I had just come from Cairo and 
Jerusalem. The melancholy air of decay 
which lingers about the deserted palaces of 
what was once the splendid Queen of the 
Adriatic always saddens me in Venice. 
When the novelty of paddling in a gon- 
dola through the watery ways and close 



From Athens to the Tyrol. 185 

by the doorsteps of old musty mansions, is 
over, then the city becomes just a trifle 
monotonous. The first day is a dehght and 
a marvel; the treasures of the Doge^s pal- 
ace and of ancient St. Mark are unsur- 
passed; after that Yenice has no endless 
succession of picturesque scenes like Cairo, 
and no sublime memories to feed on like 
Jerusalem. The Italian Government are try- 
ing hard to revive Venice; but it rs impos- 
sible to rebuild again the prosperity which 
once boasted of its fleets of merchantmen in 
every port. 

At nine o'clock I was in the cars for 
Yerona and Innsbruck. The vineyards, and 
gardens, and mulberry orchards, and grain- 
fields were at the height of their June lux- 
uriance. We sped on through Padua, and 
beautiful Yicenza, and Yerona — over which 
the genius of Shakespeare still hangs like a 
morning star — and then we began to make 
our slow ascent of the foot-hills of the Tyrol. 
By six o'clock we reached the ancient city 
of Trent, the ' ' Tridentum '^ of the Romans, 



186 The Nile to Norway. 

and the town which the Papacy selected 
three centuries ago as the seat of its famous 
Ecumenical Council. It was a good stop- 
ping-place for the night, as I wished to see 
the grand scenery of the Brenner Pass by 
daylight. I found pleasant quarters at the 
"Hotel Trento/' and sallied out, at twilight, 
to find the Church of Santa Maria. This 
venerable structure was the place in which 
the famous Council of Trent held its sessions 
from 1545 to 1559. I found it crowded with 
worshippers — over whom the candles at the 
grand altar threw but a dim light — and up 
in the chancel hung a large painting of the 
Council. A priest was reading prayers from 
a lofty throne or pulpit, and the people 
were responding with interludes of song. 
Their Italian and Tyrolese voices made such 
rich melody that I was glad that for once 
the organ held its peace. The next morning 
soon after six o'clock I was there again, and 
the church was filled as the evening before. 
Say what we will, these Roman Catholics put 
us Protestants to the blush in the matter 



From Athens to the Tyrol. 187 

of church-attendance. At that early service 
in St. Mary's Basihca were scores of day- 
laborers in their working-dress, mingled with 
the rich and the refined — all beginning the 
day together in a service of sacred devotion. 
Grrant that there was no little of the sen- 
suous and the superstitious in their service; 
still, it was the only way they knew to find 
God, or any comfort to their souls. Let us 
imitate their punctuality and their zeal be- 
fore we hurl any more stones at their igno- 
rance or their bondage to priestcraft. 

After breakfast we quit our home-like ho- 
tel for the trainj the courteous landlord ac- 
companying his guests to the cars, purchasing 
tickets for the ladies, and then bidding us 
all " good-by '^ as if we were the guests 
of a private mansion. I wonder if it would 
do us Americans any harm if we should copy 
some of the pleasant amenities and courtesies 
that prevail in so many countries of Europe. 
A German hotel is really a school of pohte- 
ness down to the waiters and the porter at 
the door. At the Hotel de TEurope in 



188 The Nile to Norway. 

Innsbruck, every employe in the house rose 
and bade me **good morning'^ when I made 
my appearance, and a ''good night ^' when 
I passed along to my room. Such little 
courtesies cost nothing, but they are very 
pleasant to a stranger in a foreign land. 

My ride over the celebrated Pass of the 
Brenner was beyond all description. Rus- 
kin's pen could not do justice to those deep 
emerald vales, those quaint chalets on the 
dizzy mountain-sides, and those mighty peaks 
above us clad with everlasting snow. We 
slowly wound up from one scene of enchant- 
ment to another until we had exhausted all 
our supply of superlatives and were content 
to gaze on the wonderful panorama in silence. 
On the southern side of the mountains the 
swift Adige shot and foamed along towards 
the Adriatic. After we had crossed the 
summit of the Brenner and begun our north- 
ern descent, another river kept us company 
with its rush and roar until we reached Inns- 
bruck. That day^s ride gave me the most 
complete sense of beauty that I have yet ex- 



From Athens to the Tyrol. 189 

perienced during this tour. Switzerland is 
the land for sublimity; the Tyrol for a beauty 
that bewitches, but seldom overawes. 

I spent three days at Innsbruck, which 
has two great attractions. One of them is 
the magnificent snow-crowned Alps that sur- 
round it. The loftiest of these — the ''Wal- 
draster '' — is a massive pyramid of rock nine 
thousand feet toward the clouds. The oth- 
er attraction is the monumental tomb of 
the Emperor Maximilian with its splendid 
sculptures and thirty bronze statues, which 
Thorwaldsen pronounced to be unequalled 
in Europe. It stands in the Franciscan 
church; and close by it are the grave and 
the statue of the heroic Hofer, the Tell of 
the Tyrol. His countrymen gathered around 
that monument last Sabbath, and gazed at it 
with veneration. 

But alas for railroads and modern improve- 
ments! Hofer would not recognize his own 
kindred in their modern dress. Instead of 
the old, bright, picturesque Tyrolese costume 
which I once knew a few years ago, I now 



190 The Nile to Norway. 

see only the prosaic imitations of their Ger- 
man neighbors. Only one genuine Tyrolese 
have I encountered during the last week 
who wore the red rig and graceful hat and 
feather of his ancestors. Yesterday I left 
Innsbruck by the new route, and had an- 
other enchanting day of mountains and ver- 
dant valleys; of fields purpled with flowers, 
and of swift streams foaming down the 
ravines. Late in the afternoon we began 
to see — far ahead — the lordly Castle of 
Salzburg on its lofty cliff — ^the only rival 
of Heidelberg for stateliness and grandeur. 
It stands like a giant sentinel overlooking 
a wide plain of surpassing loveliness. At 
its feet lies this romantic city, the birth- 
place of Mozart, and one of the most cele- 
brated seats, in former days, of wealth and 
chivalry and song. Under the very shadow 
of that castle, I bid my readers ''good 
night P' 



XVII. 

PRAGUE— DRESDEN. 

Grand Union Hotd, Dresden, June 16. 

TTTROM Salzburg I had rather a monoto- 
^ nous ride to Linz on the banks of 
the Danube. The noble old historic stream 
runs with a strong turbid current, and the 
scenery at many points on its banks is very 
fine. The next day brought me through 
Bohemia to Prague. It is Bohemia still, 
although under the Austrian crown; and the 
vast majority of the people still speak in 
the language of John Huss and Jerome. I 
found the city in its gala dress, with trium- 
phal arches over the streets, and thousands 
of Austrian, Bohemian, and Belgian flags 
floating from the windows and house-tops. 
The Crown Prince Rudolph — the heir to the 
Austrian throne — had arrived on the pre- 

191 



192 The Nile to Norway. 

vious day with the Princess Stephanie, his 
Belgian bride. As he purposes to make 
Prague his residence for some time, the 
Bohemians are in high feather at having a 
hve specimen of royalty once more in the 
old palace of Maria Theresa. The next day 
he drove through the streets in regal style 
with his bride at his side, and amid the 
cheers of the populace. She is a pretty girl 
of seventeen, with a merry countenance, and 
promises to be exceedingly popular. 

I was surprised to find Prague so large, 
so stately, and so modern withal; much of 
it is as bright as Brussels, and its shops are 
as showy as those of Paris. The town is 
built on elevated ground on both sides of 
the Moldau, and from the Palace walls — 
which stand on a lofty hill — it is really one 
of the most imposing cities in the whole 
Teutonic realm. To me it was chiefly inter- 
esting as the scene of the heroic career of 
John Huss. His presence still fills its atmos- 
phere as the presence of Luther fills Witten- 
berg, and the august shade of Calvin still 



Prague — Dresden. 193 

haunts the streets of Geneva. I hastened 
at once to the ancient '^ Teyne-church/^ 
where Huss often preached; it has been the 
scene of many a fierce conflict both of tongue 
and sword. Beside one of its venerable 
Gothic columns is the tomb of Tycho Brahe, 
the great Danish astronomer. His sextant is 
still preserved in the Jesuit College. I saw a 
fine specimen of his autograph in the Mu- 
seum, and, what was of still higher interest, 
the original challenge of John Huss to his 
opponents which he afiixed to the gates 
of the University. The Reformer wrote a 
strong square hand, and the precious docu- 
ment (which is only about six inches by four) 
looked almost like a leaf from a Hebrew 
Bible. Beside it lies a small manuscript of 
Ziska; and on an adjoining" table is the first 
copy of the Scriptures ever printed in Bo- 
hemia. It is in clear type and bears on its 
title-page the date 1480. That was about 
midway between the martyrdom of Huss and 
the rise of Martin Luther. That Museum 
of Prague contains some fine picking for an 



194 The Nile to Norway. 

antiquary. I looked with keen interest at 
some specimens of the iron flails used by 
the fierce followers of Ziska, and felt that 
it was enough for one day to have seen 
John Huss's challenge to the Pope and the 
Devil, and to have grasped the sword oi 
Gustavus Adolphus. 

Prague afforded me two days of unmixed 
delight in threading the streets of its ancient 
quarter, in crossing its crowded bridge from 
which Saint John of Nepomuk was flung, 
and across which armies fought for three 
centuries, and in climbing to the heights on 
which the great Wallenstein once lived in 
royal splendor. I found that quite too few 
Americans visit the grand old city of John 
Huss and Rudolph of Hapsburg; but it had 
a home-like look to me, to see in the read- 
ing-room of the pleasant Hotel d'Angleterre, 
a large English Bible and a file of the JSFew 
York Observer. 

The route from Prague to Dresden runs 
directly along the Elbe, and through the 
heart of that picturesque region known as 



Prague— Dresden. 195 

the ''Saxon Switzerland/' An exquisitely 
beautiful region it is, with bold ramparts 
of rock, and deep green ravines, and ro- 
mantic old castles on its steeps; but to call 
it after the same name with the region of 
Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, is rather 
a hard strain upon language. It bears about 
the same resemblance to Switzerland that 
Trenton Falls do to Niagara. It takes a 
vast deal of beauty to reach the sublime. 
But that picturesque scenery along the Elbe 
I found to be an excellent preparation for 
the city of Dresden. I came here, not to 
discover historic sites or to be awed with 
majestic cathedrals, but to study art and 
to enjoy the finest single picture-gallery in 
Europe. Dresden simply means fine art; it 
is the Florence of G-ermany. Just as in 
Prague I hastened to the Church of John 
Huss, so on my arrival here I set off at 
once for '' The Zwinger.'' On every previous 
trip to Europe I have been cheated out of 
Dresden; so I set my face speedily towards 
that huge pile of The Zwinger, which con- 



196 The Nile to Norway. 

tains the splendid treasures which have been 
accumulating for a hundred and fifty years. 
The pecuniary value of the vast collection 
must be estimated by millions; outside of 
the Vatican no other roof covers so many 
of the masterpieces of genius. 

I did not stop to sharpen my appetite 
with any ^' first courses'' of inferior art, but 
struck at once for that room in the north- 
west corner of the edifice which contains 
Raphael's Sistine Madonna. Very few things 
in this world come up to our expectations. 
That painting did; I just put it in my mem- 
ory gallery alongside of Rubens' ^* Descent 
from the Cross"; to my taste those are 
the two most perfect pieces of sacred art 
on this globe. Every one has a right to his 
own opinion, and every visitor to the Zwin- 
ger galleries has his favorites. After the 
peerless picture of Raphael, the six paint- 
ings which gave the most delight were 
Titian's ^^ Tribute Money," Albert Durer's 
** Crucifixion," Rembrandt's '^Manoah's Sac- 
rifice," Corregio's "Holy Night," Battoni's 



Prague — Dresden. 197 

''Repentant Magdalen/' and the ''Ecce Ho- 
mo '^ of Guido. As for tlie innumerable Ye- 
nuses and Ledas, and other nude classicali- 
ties, they had better be turned over to my 
friend Anthony Comstock, or into the Elbe. 
The same Titian who painted that won- 
derful head of our Lord in the '* Tribute 
Money '' had no business to smirch his pencil 
with those naked goddesses. Raphael kept 
his canvasses clean from such defilements. 
The gem of Albert Durer's genius is only 
about six inches square; but it is enough 
to give him immortality* The ''Repentant 
Magdalen '' of Battoni is copied in thousands 
of engravings in America; none of them give 
any idea of its exquisite charm of coloring. 
It is a face to dream about. Corregio^s 
great feat is that he has made the face of 
the infant Saviour so radiant that it lights 
up the whole caravansera at Bethlehem. 
As for Rembrandt's painting of Manoah and 
his wife, kneeling with closed eyes and 
overawed by the angeFs presence — it is one 
of the most solemn, devout and soul-moving 



198 . The Nile to Norway. 

pictures in the world. I shall always think 
of Manoah with a certain reverence, after 
seeing that wonderful portraiture. 

Rembrandt was assuredly the greatest por- 
trait-painter the world has ever seen. Next 
to him stands Yandyke. The masterpieces 
of these master-workmen are to be found 
here, and their works alone are enough to 
give celebrity to yonder galleries. I have 
been gazing this week at their productions, 
and at the marvellous productions of Ra- 
phael, and Titian, and Guido, and Durer, 
and Rubens, just as I gazed at the Par- 
thenon at Athens, and said to myself, ''What 
has become of the creative genius that did 
these things? Why can the age that in- 
vents telegraphs and bridges oceans with 
steamships, do nothing but copy the art of 
centuries gone by ? '^ In one short century 
little Greece taught the world how to build 
and how to carve marble; in another brief 
period the great painters taught the world 
what painting is; their skill died with them 
and they have left no successors. Our age 



Prague — Dresden. 199 

has other work to do: '^To everything there 
is a time/' and the time for rearing Par- 
thenons and painting Madonnas has gone 
by, never to return. 

Dresden is rich in historical relics as well 
as in works of art. I spent some hours 
yesterday in the Johannean Museum, look- 
ing at the magnificent suits of armor worn 
by the old Electors of Saxony, and the 
trappings of their horses resplendent with 
gold and jewels. The Elector Christian II. 's 
armor was of solid silver. Under one glass 
case were the swords of Peter the Great, 
Charles XII. of Sweden, and Macaulay's 
hero William, Prince of Orange. In anoth- 
er case were Martin Luther's sword and 
drinking-cup. The grand old fellow had no 
business with either. There was a remark- 
able collection of shoes in one room; among 
them the dainty slippers worn by Empress 
Maria Theresa, and the coarser footgear 
worn by the philosopher Kant. Napoleon's 
boots worn at the battle of Dresden were 
there, and also his coronation slippers made 



200 The Nile to Norway. 

of satin and riclily embroidered with gold. 
Judging from these, the foot that trod down 
Europe for fifteen years must have been 
very small. 

After examining the rich collection, I 
went down into the ^' Green Vault'' under 
the Palace to see the gorgeous display of 
gold and silver ornaments and rare jewel- 
ries. There are enough rubies, pearls, dia- 
monds, and showy trinkets there to make the 
belles of Fifth Avenue and Saratoga crazy. 
If Solomon could have seen Dresden, he 
might have added another chapter on ^'The 
peculiar treasures of kings,'' and their ^ Can- 
ity and vexation of spirit." To-day I leave 
this fascinating city for Wittenberg, the home 
and burial-place of Martin Luther, where he 
used a stronger weapon than a sword to 
make war upon principalities and powers, 
and spiritual wickedness in high places. 



XVIII. 

THE LAND OF LUTHER. 

Wittenberg, June 18. 

TpxlTRINGr neither of my previous visits 
-*"-^ to Grermany have I been able to see 
the region especially associated with the 
greatest events of Luther's career; so I 
shaped my present tour that it might in- 
clude both Prague and Wittenberg. The 
look at the home of Huss, the pioneer of 
the Reformation, was a good prelude to the 
home of the Great Reformer. 

"Wittenberg is a quiet city of twelve thou- 
sand inhabitants, on the banks of the Elbe, 
about midway between Dresden and Magde- 
burg. But few Americans visit it, for I had 
to look back some distance on the register 
of this '^ Hotel of the Golden Vineyard '^ 
before I could jSnd a Yankee name. Dres- 
den is Parisian, but Wittenberg is thoroughly 

201 



202 The Nile to Norway. 

German. The railroad keeps a respectful 
distance from the gates of the town, as if it 
would not disturb the dreamy quietude of 
the old cradle of the Reformation. As the 
one-horse omnibus jogged slowly toward the 
ancient Elsterthor, the driver swung his whip 
toward an oak-tree, surrounded by a grass- 
plat and a few flowers. That tree marks the 
spot where Brother Martin burned the Pope's 
fire-decree, on the tenth of December, 1520. 
The blaze of that burning ^^ bull '' was pretty 
distinctly visible from the Vatican. 

The little inn at which -J was set down 
stands on the market-place. In front of my 
window are two statues, about a hundred 
feet apart. One of them, erected fifteen 
years ago, represents a slender figure, robed 
in a gown, with a countenance almost ema- 
ciated and wearing a saintly expression. 
Upon the pedestal is inscribed, from the 
Epistles to the Ephesians: '^Endeavoring to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
of peace.'' On the other side is written: 
"I will speak of Thy testimonies also before 



The Land of Luther. 203 

kings, and will not be ashamed.'^ That slen- 
der, seraphic figure is Philip Melancthon, 
who was the gentle and beloved Jonathan 
to the burly psalmist and warrior who stands 
on the twin pedestal, a few yards off. A 
genuine Teuton is that robust character, 
planted firmly in his bronze shoes and 
holding his finger to the open page of 
God's Word. The short, taurine neck and 
heavy jaw mark the holy obstinacy of the 
man. The inscriptions on the pedestal are 
exceedingly happy. Underneath the open 
Bible is inscribed (as if Luther himself were 
just speaking it from his bronze lips): '' Be- 
lieve the Gospel.^'. That is the very message 
which German theology and philosophy need 
most to hear and to heed to-day. The east 
side of the monument bears Luther's famous 
words: ^'If this be God's work, it will en- 
dure: if it be man's it will perish." On the 
west side is carved the immortal motto: ^' Mn 
feste Burg ist unser Oott^ 

The partnership of these two great leaders 
of the Reformation, which is marked by the 



204 The Nile to Norway. 

similarity of their monuments, holds good 
all through the town. Walking up the 
^'CoUege-strasse/^ I came upon a three- 
story house, old within and modernized 
without. ^^Here lived Philip Melancthon '^ 
is written on the front. Into that narrow 
hallway the jolly face of Luther must have 
been thrust many a time, when some new 
idea was to be discussed w^ith Brother Philip 
or when some racy scandal about Tetzel or 
Eck had come to Brother Martinis ears. 
With many a boisterous laugh that house 
has rung. 111 warrant. There was infinite 
fun underneath Luther's well-lined ribs. 
There must have been almost hourly inter- 
course between the two men, for just a few 
steps beyond Melancthon's house I came to 
an arched entrance to an open court. In 
that court a teacher was watching the gym- 
nastics of a few boys. Before me was a large 
building, called the ^^ Augusteum ^' and now 
used as a seminary for ministers. The mid- 
dle rooms on the second floor are a part of 
Luther's original dwelling. He lived there 



The Land of Luther. 205 

while professor in the University, in 1508, 
and his good friend, the Elector Frederick, 
presented the house to him. A generous 
soul was Frederick, for I saw at Dresden 
a superb cabinet, ornamented with carved 
work and jewels, and also a gilded drink- 
in g-cup, which he gave to his beloved friend 
the Reformer. 

In the doorway of the Augusteum sat an 
old lady, knitting, with a pretty daughter 
at her side. The yoimg fraulein took a 
key from a nail and led me up a stairway, 
through an ante-room; and then unlocking 
an ancient door, showed me into a large 
room, with low ceilings. In one corner 
stood an enormous iron stove, eight feet 
high, covered with historical groups in bas- 
relief. In the other corner stood a large 
oaken table. These are the only surviving 
pieces of furniture in the apartment which 
was once filled with the presence of the 
mightiest man of the sixteenth century 
When on the cold winter nights that big 
table was wheeled up beside the big stove^ 



206 The Nile to Norway. 

and the big head was bent over it in study, 
then Grod's Word was unloosed" into the Teu- 
tonic tongue. Sometimes the Bible stands 
open to the Epistle to the Galatians, and 
then he takes a turn at the ^' Commentary.'' 
Brother Melancthon has his reserved seat 
by the stove, and sometimes, when Brother 
Martin breaks out into a snatch of ^' ein feste 
Bitrg^^^ it almost drowns the howling of the 
blasts without. Good wife Catherina brings 
in some hot potations occasionally, I sus- 
pect; for there is a drinking goblet still 
preserved in the room and I saw another 
one in the Museum at Dresden. One of 
the most unique relics in Luther's room is 
the autograph of Peter the Great, in chalk, 
on the door-frame. There was enough of 
the Norseman about Luther to suit Peter's 
ideal of the ^'konning-man.'' 

After I had enjoyed the quaint old room 
and possessed myself of the photograph of 
Cranach's portrait of the Reformer, which 
hangs in an adjoining apartment, the frau- 
kin took me down the street to the ancient 




MARTIN LUTHER. 
( From the original portrait in his house at Wittenberg. 
Nile to Norway. 



p. 206. 



The Land of Luther. 207 

Scliloss-kirche. It stands close against the 
infantry barracks. Upon the original doors 
of this church Luther nailed up the famous 
ninety-five theses, in 1520; but during a 
bombardment of Wittenberg by the Aus- 
trians the doors were burned. King Fred- 
erick William replaced them with metal 
doors, bearing the original Latin text of the 
theses. Within that church Luther's ashes 
slumber, beneath the central pavement. Close 
by him sleeps Brother Melancthon. The part- 
nership was never broken. Loving in their 
lives, in death they are not divided. 

Last evening, at sunset, I went down again 
to the ancient church. A few of the simple 
German town's-folk (just such folk as Luther 
used to preach to here) were strolling past, 
out to a public garden in the suburbs. I 
seemed to see the burly Reformer, as he 
came to that spot, three hundred and sixty 
years ago, with the immortal theses in one 
hand and his hammer in the other. He does 
not dream himself what results are to come 
from that simple deed. With sturdy strokes 



208 The Nile to Norway. 

he sends home the nails, until the ring of 
that hammer begins to startle Germany out 
of the slumbers of the Dark Ages. Germany 
has never gone back into that nightmare of 
superstition; but Protestantism on the Elbe 
and the Oder is not broad awake to-day. 
That hammer needs to ring again. 

This morning, early, I walked around to 
the old Stadt-kirche, in which Luther often 
preached, close to the market-place. A ser- 
vice was going on and but few were present. 
I contrasted sadly the small gathering with 
a crowded service at the same hour (a fort- 
night ago) in the Romish Church at Trent. 
The Catholics attend church at least fivefold 
more than the Protestants on the Continent; 
but the service in the Stadt-kirche interested 
me deeply, because the ^' plain song'' was the 
same that Luther and his neighbors used to 
sing there. In fact, the neighbors themselves 
were close beside me, for many of Luther's 
intimate friends and brother professors lie 
buried under the church or close to its walls. 
All round the outer wall of the building stand 



The Land of Luther. 209 

their moss-grown tablets, with epitaphs bare- 
ly legible. Some of these worthies of the 
sixteenth century are rej)resented in queer 
effigies of stone, either clad in armor or in 
scholastic robes. Here a head is broken off; 
there, an arm. Time has dealt roughly with 
these stout old protestors; but to me, this 
morning, they seem to be living still and 
their spirits still haunt the ancient church 
in which they once crowded to hear Brother 
Martin denounce the ^^Man of Sin.'' Nay, 
Luther himself seems to abide here still. All 
Wittenberg is full of his spiritual presence, 
and, as I look out of my window this bright 
June morning, I can imagine him as walking 
with lumbering gait down yonder College- 
strasse, with a roll of his MS. German Bible 
under his arm. He walks across the market- 
place, stops to salute Brother Philip with a 
'' giiten Tag,^'' and then vanishes out of sight. 



XIX. 

HAMBURG TO COPENHAGEN. 

Copenhagen, June 23. 

"T FOUND Wittenberg not only interesting 
-^ from its great historic past, but from 
its representative character as a quiet indus- 
trious town occupied by the middle class of 
the Grerman people. As there are infantry- 
barracks in the town, I saw rather more 
than the average number of soldiers in the 
streets, but they are quite too abundant 
everywhere in Kaiser William's dominions. 
This swarm of locusts, in martial toggery, 
is devouring the substance of the Empire. 
We in America have our full share of dram- 
shops and demagogues, but let us thank God 
that we have not the additional curse of a 
vast standing army. At sunset I strolled 
out of Wittenberg to ornamental gardens in 
the suburbs, where the town-folk were re- 

210 



Hamburg to Copenhagen. 211 

galing themselves with promenading in the 
pubhc walks, and some of them with taU 
tumblers of beer. The Germans are a do- 
mestic, cheerful, and festive people, and de- 
light in assembling together in such beau- 
tiful parks and gardens as every town can 
boast. I' really pity them when they come 
to America; they must sadly miss such a 
public ''platz'^ as I saw in Innspruck, Wit- 
tenberg, and on a grand scale in Hamburg. 
Their attempts to reproduce these places of 
social resort in our country are but sorry 
attempts at the best; but even though they 
fail I am not surprised that they make the 
effort. It is a part of a Grerman's very life 
to enjoy his social hour in a park or a 
^'Volk^s Garten,'^ and even though those 
Wittenbergers imbibed more beer than we 
teetotalers fancy, yet I saw no drunkenness 
or boisterous carousals. 

My next stage was to Hamburg by rail. 
I find the German railways admirably man- 
aged, and moderate in fare. There are very 
few ^* first-class'' cars; the second-class are 



212 The Nile to Norway. 

really luxurious, and the first-class are left 
to the princes and the fools. Except in those 
carriages that are marked ^' Nicht-rauchen '^ 
(no smoking) or '^for ladies/' there is per- 
petual fumigation with pipes or cigars. 
Smoking has become almost universal in 
the Orient and over the continent of Eu- 
rope. In Turkey, Egypt, and Syria the 
ladies are greatly addicted to cigarettes; 
there is not one man in a hundred who 
does not indulge in his narguileh if he can 
afford it. Mohammed prohibited wine, but 
I suspect that pipes will be a prominent 
feature in an Orientars Paradise. 

Hamburg is a great bustling and showy 
city, with nearly half a million of inhabitants, 
including the suburbs. It is the chief com- 
mercial city on the continent, and becoming 
immensely rich. Around the '' Alster Basin'' 
are sumptuous hotels and private mansions; 
the parks are filled with fine equipages; and 
five thousand merchants and shippers crowd 
the Exchange every day from one to three 
o'clock. The finest building in the city is 



Hamburg to Copenhagen. 213 

the St. Nicholas (Protestant) Church, a florid 
Gothic structure, with a spire four hundred 
and seventy-three feet high. Tiiere are only 
two loftier spires in Europe — Cologne Ca- 
thedral and St. Ouen at Rouen. I attended 
service there last Sabbath morning, and al- 
though the noble building has seats for two 
thousand and standing-room for as many 
more, there were not two hundred persons 
present! I went around afterwards to "St. 
Peter's/^ an elegant church, in which at least 
fifteen hundred were in attendance. After 
the sermon — delivered under a rich ancient 
canopy — the congregational singing in Ger- 
man plain-song was very grand. The archi- 
tectural display of Hamburg — especially in 
the way of elegant private residences — has 
surpassed my expectations. In the finest 
portion of the city is the " Alster Basin, ^' 
a small lake, surrounded by the principal 
hotels and promenades. This Basin ex- 
tends for about two miles, growing nar- 
rower until it becomes no wider than the 
East River at Astoria. It is fined with 



214 The Nile to Norway. 

beautiful villas and gardens, and a sail past 
these delightful grounds is the most attrac- 
tive recreation I found there. Every ten 
minutes a sort of omnibus-steamer started 
from in front of our hotel for ^ ^ Raven- 
strasse," or ^' Bellevue/' or ^' Eppendorf/' 
or other of these suburban resorts. Mer- 
chants or bankers, after business hours, go 
on board these httle steamers with their 
wives and children, and for a few dimes 
enjoy a sail that is as pleasant as an ex- 
cursion to Staten Island. No commercial 
craft enter this miniature lake, which is 
used exclusively for pleasure-travel. 

Although street-cars (or '' tram- ways,'' as 
they call them in Europe) originated in Amer- 
ica, yet we may learn something from the 
way in which they are managed in Hamburg. 
A line starts from in front of the Exchange 
every five minutes, and carries you through 
the beautiful narrow park (which almost sur- 
rounds the city) towards Altona. The finest 
horses I saw in Hamburg were driven before 
some of these cars. In the rear of each car 



Hamburg to Copenhagen. 215 

is a sort of lobby for cigar-smokers; and no 
one is allowed to enter the car unless there 
is a seat for him or her. The road has a 
single track for part of -the way, and when 
one car meets another, it turns out on the 
Belgian pavement, and is easily thrown back 
again on the iron rails by means of a small 
guiding wheel in front of the car. In one 
of these luxuriously cushioned cars I never 
paid more than three cents fare; and if we 
could have anything approaching to this in 
comfort, we Brooklyn folk would not be so 
intensely anxious to see an elevated railway. 
Hamburg would not endure an hour what 
Brooklyn has patiently submitted to for 
twenty years. 

Like all the other German towns, Ham- 
burg has its monument to its soldiers who 
fell during the Franco-German war of 1870. 
It is the most touching in conception of any 
I have ever seen on either side of the ocean. 
A bronze figure representing ^^Germania'^ 
is holding a laurel over a dying grenadier 
who is just falling in the saddle of a horse 



216 The Nile to Norway. 

that also lies dead upon the field. The fig- 
ures of both horse and rider are superb. 
Just behind them is a dying infantry-soldier, 
and beside him an artillery-man has fallen 
with his rammer in his hands. It is alto- 
gether a pathetic poem wrought into bronze. 
The work was executed by Schilling of Dres- 
den, and as a stroke of genius, is equal to 
the famous equestrian statue of Frederick 
the Great in Berlin. 

Hamburg ranks next to London, Liverpool, 
and Glasgow, in the extent of its commerce. 
Over six thousand vessels enter its capacious 
harbor every year. The chief articles in 
which its merchants deal are sugar, coffee, 
iron, grain, butter, hides and fancy goods. 
From its wharves about thirty thousand emi- 
grants set sail for America during every 
twelvemonth, and a majority of these are 
Germans. Some leave the Fatherland to 
escape service in the army; others to avoid 
heavy taxation; others in order to become 
land-owners (and not tenants) in our great 
West; and others still from preference for a 



Hamburg to Copenhagen. 217 

republican government. They are, in the 
main, a thrifty, honest and industrious ad- 
dition to our American population. But they 
carry over with them their lax ideas of the 
Sabbath and their inbred religious formalism; 
too many of them are enough tainted with 
^' scientism '^ to become utter skeptics. They 
cannot be reached by our ordinary agencies, 
and unless they are approached by German 
preachers and missionaries who can address 
them in their own language, they will simply 
become fresh recruits to our growing army 
of Sabbath-breakers, and rejectors of gospel- 
truth. To meet that stream of emigration 
which pours towards us from the Teutonic 
empire, the American churches should be 
establishing German theological schools, and 
training the right men for the work. 

From Hamburg I came last evening to 
this capital of the Danes by way of Keil. 
Bishop Peck of America, who is on a vis- 
it to his Methodist brethren in the north 
of Europe, was my fellow-passenger. We 
reached Copenhagen at ten this morning 



218 The Nile to Norway. 

and within an hour I was in the Thorwald- 
sen Museum. The name of this peerless 
sculptor of modern times is to Copenhagen 
what the name of Luther is to Wittenberg. 
Of none of her sons is Denmark so proud; 
and well she may be, for Thorwaldsen is 
the one sculptor of our era who, if he had 
lived in Athens, would have been selected 
by Pericles to carve the frieze upon the 
Parthenon. Up in these cold northern lati- 
tudes bloomed out that wonderful genius 
whose productions adorn the wails of un- 
numbered homes in every clime. 



XX. 

THE CITY OF THORWALDSEN, 

4 

Copenhagen, June 24. 

nnHIS city might well be called Thorwald- 
^ se7i, for it is filled with his presence 
as Wiemar is with the presence of Goethe 
and Potsdam with that of Frederick the 
Great. Not an hom^ passes in which his 
name is not heard; not an art-store in town 
that is not filled with the photographs of 
his matchless works; and thousands, like my- 
self, come hither mainly to feast their eyes 
on the marbles which his hand has carved. 
Copenhagen is a larger city than one would 
expect to find as the capital of so small a 
country as Denmark, for it contains 235,000 
inhabitants. Its -streets are bustling with 
business, for these Danes are an active, com- 
mercial people, exporting no small amount 
of grain, tallow, cattle, horses, and very mis- 

219 



220 The Nile to Norway. 

chievous cherry-brandy. The architecture of 
Copenhagen is not imposing; not one really 
grand edifice adorns the squares; its palaces 
wear a shabby look; and a monotonous uni- 
formity pervades the whole town. How two 
such beautiful women as the Czarina of Rus- 
sia and her sister, the Princess of Wales, 
should have issued from yonder dingy-look- 
ing palace is a conundrum. But it is still 
more remarkable that this prosaic old seaport 
of the Norsemen should have produced the 
greatest sculptor of modern times, Bertel 
Thorwaldsen ! We might say the greatest 
Tcnown sculptor of any age, for Canova, Dan- 
necker and Chantrey were not to be com- 
pared with him, and we don't know who 
produced most of the masterpieces in marble 
which have come down to us from ancient 
times. Thorwaldsen claimed that his ances- 
tors were kings of Iceland, but his own father 
was a ship-carpenter; and the boy Bertel 
early learned to handle the tools with which 
his father carved figure-heads for Danish mer- 
chantmen. He went early to Rome, and for 



The City of Thorwaldsen. 221 

years pursued his studies of art in utter 
obscurity. By and by he executed that 
grand statue of ''Jason and his Fleece/' 
which I saw to-day, and then he awoke to 
find himself immediately famous. Thence- 
forward his chisel was busy for almost forty 
years; and his native Denmark, proud of 
his genius, gave a home in one of her 
palaces to the greatest man she has ever 
produced. 

Yesterday, as soon as I had arrived in 
Copenhagen, I hastened off to the Museum 
which was erected expressly to contain the 
productions of his chisel. It is a gloomy 
looking edifice on the exterior, and the in- 
terior is severely plain. In the hollow square 
of the quadrangle is the great sculptor's tomb. 
Four granite slabs enclose a little bed of 
earth, planted with ivy, and on one of the 
slabs is the simple name Bertel Thorwald- 
sen. The whole building with its treasures 
is his real monument. On entering the 
building you see in the vestibule the long 
Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon, 



222 The Nile to Norway. 

a series of bas-reliefs, executed by order of 
Napoleon, and worthy of a place on any 
of the friezes of ancient Athens. 

Soon after I went into the smaller cabinets 
that contain his masterpieces, I began to 
come upon those exquisite originals whose 
photographs are hung in thousands of Ameri- 
can parlors and libraries. In one cabinet 
was his famous ^^ Night,'' with the two cher- 
ubs asleep on her shoulder and the owl poised 
in the air behind her drooping wing. On the 
opposite wall is '^Morning,'' with the cherub 
bearing the torch to light up the dawn. A 
little farther on I came to the bas-reliefs 
representing '^ Spring, '' '^ Summer, '' ^' Au- 
tumn,'' and old ^ ' Winter " warming his be- 
numbed fingers over the brazier of coals. 
Then, a few steps farther on, I encountered 
the ''Ganymede and the Eagle," the ''Hebe," 
and the "Shepherd Boy," and the "Three 
Graces." All these had long been as familiar 
to my eye as the City Hall of Brooklyn, 
or the spire of my own church. Yet the 
originals are so vastly superior to any photo- 



The City of Thorwaldsen. 223 

graphic copies, that they burst upon me as 
entirely new revelations of beauty ! They 
were not marble; they seemed like flesh and 
blood that had turned white. The dog that 
stands beside the shepherd boy looks as if 
he could breathe, and you almost expect to 
hear him bark ! The little cupids that are 
playing'their roguish pranks in a ^' Love-nest'^ 
are as individual in the expression of their 
sweet faces as any half-dozen babies brought 
into an infant school on anniversary day. It 
is not art; it seems actual life. 

But the sublimest of Thorwaldsen's produc- 
tions are not contained in this museum. 
They are in the ''Frau Kirk/^ a Protestant 
house of worship often attended by the royal 
family. The building itself is in the Greek 
style, and is very attractive. On the front 
of the pulpit is inscribed, in golden letters: 
*' Blessed are they that hear the Word of 
God, and keep it.'' That motto ought to 
be written on every pulpit in America; it 
would furnish a hint to us ministers as to 
what we should preach, as well as to our 



224 The Nile to Norway. 

congregations to carry home the truth and 
practice it. 

On the platform at the end of the church 
is an exquisite kneehng Angel, that holds 
in her hand an escalop-shell of marble — 
used as a baptismal font. It is a dream 
of beauty. Behind this figure, in an alcove, 
rises the somewhat colossal figure of the Risen 
Christ, Above his majestic head is the in- 
scription, ''This is my Beloved Son, hear ye 
him.'' That glorious form — the only statue 
of our divine Lord I have ever seen that 
is worthy of its subject — is immediately be- 
fore the congregation every Sabbath when 
they assemble for worship. Along the sides 
of the nave — about a dozen feet ajDart — are 
ranged Thorwaldsen's celebrated "Twelve 
Apostles.'' The figure of Paul is commonly 
accounted the finest; but that of Thomas 
(who stands with his finger pressed on his lip 
in an attitude of douht), seemed to me superi- 
or to all the others. John has too womanly 
a beauty for a "son of thunder." Because 
he was the "beloved disciple" there is no 



The City of Thorwaldsen. 225 

reason to imagine him as either effeminate 
or seraphic. No one of the group has any 
more resemblance to any other than would 
any twelve living men who should meet in 
a Council or a Presbytery. Thorwaldsen 
never repeated himself. He had a wonder- 
ful instinct in catching the varied expressions 
of the human countenance, and his five hun- 
dred or more different statues are each en- 
tirely different from the other. He seemed 
equally at home, too, in classic and in sacred 
themes for his chisel. Once he selected him- 
self for his subject, and the noble figure of 
Thorwaldsen — chisel in hand — by his own 
consummate skill will always remain as the 
great artist's best likeness. He must have 
been a man of commanding nobility of face 
and presence. 

I have devoted the whole of this letter 
to this extraordinary genius, for several rea- 
sons. One is that he is more to every vis- 
itor in Copenhagen than all the rest of the 
city combined. Again; I am sure that hun- 
dreds of my readers who have copies of his 



226 The Nile to Norway. 

works in their houses will be gratified to 
know more about the original masterpieces. 
But above all, I desire to pay my humble 
tribute to an artist who never prostituted 
his transcendent genius to an impure or de- 
moralizing purpose. Much of the highest art 
at Florence, Yenice and Dresden is lascivi- 
ous. Over the walls are sprawled whole 
shoals of nude goddesses and nymphs and 
other unclean beasts. But Thorwaldsen por- 
trayed a Love that never degenerated into 
lust. His chisel was never wanton. His 
magnificent galleries can be traversed by 
any father with his daughter at his side. 
He never profaned even the ineffable Lord 
of glory when he attempted to portray him 
in marble ; and whether the man were a 
Christian or not, he consecrated his chisel 
to a higher and holier purpose than any 
sculptor in modern times. I am thankful 
that during a journey that has included 
Jerusalem and Athens and Wittenberg, J 
have also seen the peculiar treasures of the 
City of Thorwaldsen. 



XXL 

NORWAY. 



Christiania, June 27. 



"T T THEN my congregation sent me abroad, 
^ ^ it was their desire that I should not 
only see as much of the lands of the Bible 
as the lateness of the season would permit, 
but should also extend my tour to the north 
of Europe. I had also been anxious to get 
at least a good glimpse of Scandinavia. To 
a Norwegian there is no land so beautiful 
as his own Norway. He is ready to main- 
tain that no waters are as picturesque as the 
fiords that indent the western coast of his 
native country and that the mountains which 
overhang them are a fair match for Switz- 
erland. Few Americans ever venture into 
the home of the Norseman, but those who 
have done so always bring back glowing ac- 

227 



228 The Nile to Norway. 

counts of the grandeur of the scenery, and of 
the cordial hospitahties of the people. 

Norway ought to command a deep interest 
in our country, for no nationality in Europe 
is sending so large a proportion of its people 
to settle in America. The Norwegians are 
a prodigiously energetic race, who feeling 
straitened by the sterility of much of their 
soil, and the severity of their climate, are 
swarming over to the generous prairies of 
our boundless west. Their own country is 
eleven hundred miles long, but a large por- 
tion of it is bleak and barren; only the 
southern half is capable of rewarding the 
industry of the agriculturist. The Scandi- 
navian emigrants bring to us not only the 
habits of frugality and thrift but an intense 
loyalty to the Protestant faith. As far back 
as the tenth century King Hako the Good 
introduced Christianity into Norway after 
his temporary residence in Britain. He en- 
deavored to overthrow the worship of Odin 
and Thor, and his successor Olaf the Holy 
went so far as to pull down the temples of 



Norway. 229 

those old Norse divinities. Since the Refor- 
mation of the sixteenth century, Norway has 
.been so intensely Lutheran that until latel}^ 
no places of worship belonging to any other 
sect or creed were allowed to exist. Relig- 
ious liberty is now guaranteed to all; but 
nineteen twentieths of the people still sub- 
scribe to the doctrines of the Augsburg 
Confession. 

Until my arrival here I had always sup- 
posed that Norway had quite lost its national 
existence, and became absorbed as a part of 
Sweden. But this is not the case. Norway 
maintains its autonomy entire. It has a 
Storthing or parliament of its own which 
enacts all the laws of the realm. It has 
its own army and navy and post-office de- 
partments. The postage-stamps issued by 
the government of Sweden are no more 
current here than they would be in New 
York. In this city of Chris tiania — which 
is the capital of Norway — there is a pal- 
ace to which King Oscar comes during a 
part of every year, to administer the gov- 



230 The Nile to Norway. 

ernment over his subjects on this side of 
the border. A Norwegian flag — somewhat 
similar to the Swedish — floats over yonder, 
palace, and from the fortifications in the 
harbor. The union of Norway to Sweden 
is simply an union by treaty under which 
the two nations agree to be governed by 
the same sovereign; his official title is ''King 
of Norway and Sweden.'^ The similarity of 
race and religion between the two national- 
ities has brought them into such a close al- 
liance that for all practical purposes they 
are as really one as the people of Scotland 
and of England. 

After I had satiated myself with the fine 
sculptures of Thorwaldsen in Copenhagen, 
I set off for this beautiful city. A swift 
steamer starts for Christiania every Friday 
morning, and I found the *' Christiania" a 
model boat with a model captain. As we 
came out of the city we passed a British 
fleet (with the Duke of Edinburgh on board) 
which was anchored on the precise spot where 
Lord Nelson fought the battle of Copenhagen 



Norway. 231 

in April, 1801. Campbell, in his magnificent 
lyric on the battle, describes the slaughtered 
sailors who ^' sleep full many a fathom deep, 
by the wild and stormy steep of Elsinore/' 
But Elsinore is twenty miles from the scene 
of the engagement, and has about as much 
of a ''wild steep ^' as the wharves of Jersey 
City. Campbell had no genius for geog- 
raphy, for in his ''Gertrude of Wyoming'' 
he describes palm-trees on the banks of the 
Susquehanna ! 

As we passed Elsinore, which lies at the 
narrowest part of the " Cattegat,'' we ran 
in close to the old castle of Kronberg, on 
whose platform or water-battery Hamlet saw 
the ghost of his murdered father. To-day 
there is no Danish prince promenading on 
that battery, and no British sailor sleeping 
in the waves beneath. After we had passed 
the narrows of the Cattegat we came at once 
into that strip of water called the " Skager 
Rack,'' which separates Denmark from Nor- 
way and Sweden, and which used to be the 
scene of the nautical exploits of the old 



232 The Nile to Norway. 

Norsemen. Over those waters Harold Har- 
frager sailed with his fierce Scandinavians 
to the conquest of England tw^o centuries 
before William the Norman was born. Along 
all those rocky shores the beacons of the Vi- 
kings once blazed. These Scandinavians have 
always been a race of water-dogs sporting 
among their fiords and boisterous bays like 
the seals on the rocks of Alaska. Norway 
is to Europe very much what Maine is to our 
American Union, both as to northern situa- 
tion, picturesque island-studded coast, and the 
hardy, adventurous character of its people. 

On Friday afternoon our steamer ran its 
sharp bow in among a shoal of rocky islets, 
and after threading its way for several miles, 
we came suddenly into the harbor of Gothen- 
burg. It is a thrifty commercial city, built 
most picturesquely on the rocks, with a few 
strips of emerald vales and wooded parks ly- 
ing in between. Lumber was piled on the 
the wharves, and mackerel fishermen were 
moored alongside, just as at Portland or on 
the Kennebec. Gothenburg is one of the 



Norway. 233 

starting-points of Wilson^s line of steamers 
for England, and thence for America; one 
of the firm tells me that they ship annually 
forty thousand Scandinavian emigrants to 
our country. I would gladly exchange ten 
Catholic Corkonians for one of these sturdy 
industrious Protestants. If they could only 
be cured of some loose ideas in reference to 
the Sabbath — which they hold in common 
with all the Lutherans in Europe — and of 
their liking for strong drink, they would be 
the very best element in our immigration. 
On our steamer a decanter of free whiskey 
was placed on the table alongside of the 
decanter of water, and most of the ladies 
as well as gentlemen took a wine-glass of 
" old rye '^ before they tasted either food or 
wines. While in the Mediterranean, I found 
wine to be the universal beverage, except 
in the seaport towns, where there is a vil- 
lainous consumption of Holland gin and New 
England rum. In Germany the use of wines 
and beer is enormous. Here at the North, 
w^hiskey and other powerful alcoholics are the 



234 The Nile to Norway. 

popular drinks. There is an isothermal line 
in national beverages as in climate. The 
Saxons and Scandinavians and Sclaves are 
the races most addicted to alcohol. 

On Saturday morning we awoke among 
the charming scenery of the Fiord that leads 
up from the sea to Christiania. The banks 
of the fiord were a combination of pine-clad 
mountain and verdant valley, with a sprink- 
ling of bright Norwegian villages. Chris- 
tiania lies superbly on the hills at the head 
of the fiord, the old Castle of Agershaus 
standing out as a figure-head in front of the 
town. As soon as we landed I went around 
to another wharf to see an American friend 
off on the steamer for the North Cape, the 
Polar Sea, and the midnight sun. But why 
go a twenty days' journey to Hammerfest, 
when there is almost a midnight sun here 
at Christiania ? In this northern latitude 
(which is higher than Labrador), at this 
season of the year, the night has folded its 
sable wings and flown away. Last evening 
I was able to write with ease by an open 



Norway. 235 

window at eleven o^clock ! Even at mid- 
night it was not dark, and the city author- 
ities did not hght the street-lamps. A person 
with good strong eyes could easily read a 
newspaper through the whole twenty-four 
hours in the open air. But in midwinter 
the daylight does not last over six or seven 
hours. 

At this Grand Hotel I have been greatly 
gratified to meet my Brooklyn neighbor, 
Prof. E. P. Thwing, who is on a tour of 
exploration among the churches and Young 
Men's Christian Associations and benevolent 
institutions of Scandinavia. I was getting a 
httle tired of listening even to polite Germans 
in dislocated English, and hailed the society 
of a brother Yankee with genuine satisfac- 
tion. Prof. Thwing tells me that he saw 
snow six inches deep at Drontheim last 
week! The air has a keen edge still, even 
in the sunshine. I do not wonder that this 
austere chmate sends thousands to America. 

We rambled up to the Palace, which stands 
at the head of the Avenue in front of our 



236 The Nile to Norway. 

hotel. In this palace the King Oscar 11. 
resides when he visits the Norwegian half of 
his double kingdom. In front of the Palace 
stands a fine equestrian statue of Charles 
John XIV., better known as Marshal Ber- 
nadotte. On the pedestal is the inscription, 
*' The love of my people is my reward. '^ Out 
of all the brood of sovereigns on whose heads 
Napoleon placed an uneasy crown, Berna- 
dotte was the only one who was able to re- 
tain it; and his family occupy the throne of 
Sweden and Norway to-day. It is a sug- 
gestive fact that while Napoleon squandered 
a million of lives in order to conquer ter- 
ritory for France, she does not now hold a 
single acre of it all ! She has even lost 
Alsace and Lorraine by the sword. In the 
meanwhile the Puritan's Bible and plough 
have gained possession of a vast continent. 

We found in the palace the same stereo- 
typed series of throne-rooms and ball-rooms 
and gaudy upholsteries that all ^^ kings' 
houses'' have to display. But from the 
palace-roof we had one of the most en- 



Norway. 237 

chanting prospects that I have seen smce 
I left Salzburg. Before us was the city 
with its hill and vale; beyond was the har- 
bor bestudded with islands, and to the right 
lay *^Oscar^s-halV^ a Summer chateau of the 
King, surrounded with the brightest green 
that nature ever dyes. On a high ground 
to the left is the City Cemetery, laid out 
much like our own. I visited it on Satur- 
day towards evening, and found hundreds 
of ladies there with watering-pots, freshen- 
ing the flowers and grass in the plots for 
the Sabbath. This is a beautiful Saturday 
evening custom in Christiania. 

Yesterday the burial-grounds needed no 
artificial irrigation, for it rained bountifully. 
We attended an English service in the chapel 
of the University, an institution which enrols 
a thousand students. There were forty per- 
sons at the service; the ritualities were ex- 
ceedingly long, the singing exceedingly thin, 
and the discourse very much like the music. 
On our way home we saw five hundred people 
gathered in the park under umbrellas, and lis- 



238 The Nile to Norway. 

tening to a military band. Handbills posted 
about the streets and headed ^'Norske Trav- 
el-klub/^ announced an equestrian perform- 
ance for the Sabbath afternoon, and the 
theatre was open in the evening. Here, as 
elsewhere on the Continent, the morning of 
the Sabbath is thought sufficient for all pur- 
poses of worship by the majority of Prot- 
estants, and the latter half of the day is 
devoted to socialities and amusements. In 
this regard some Romanists take a higher 
stand than their Protestant neighbors; for 
in Innspruck I saw the Romish churches 
crowded at five and six o'clock in the Sab- 
bath afternoon. What the Protestantism of 
Holland, Grermany and the North wants is 
a fresh quickening. In Sweden I am told 
there are tokens of a new evangelical lifej 
if so, I shall be glad to record it in my 
next. Oh, for another Luther ! And when 
the next Luther comes, Heaven grant that 
he may come without any gilded " drinking- 
horn, '^ and with the true idea of a Sabbath! 



XXII 



STOCKHOLM, 



Grand Hotels Stockholm, July 5. 

/^UR twenty -four hours' journey from 
^-^ Christiania, by rail, was very tedious, 
but as we drew near to Stockholm, the taste- 
ful villas in the suburbs gave token of the 
beauty of the city before us. I do not won- 
der that the Swedes are proud of their 
'^Yenice of the North/' When the old 
IsTorseman, Birger Jarl, founded it six hun- 
dred years ago, he had the good taste to 
select a site that would meet alike the de- 
mands of beauty, of commerce, and of military 
defence. One end of the city encompasses 
beautiful Lake Maelar; another part, includ- 
ing the Palace, is on the central island; still 
another on the mainland to the north; two 
other islands have their share of the aquatic 
town; and all these various waters are ahve 

239 



240 The Nile to Norway. 

with boats and spanned with bridges. The 
city abounds in parks, and the parks abound 
in statues, fountains, and flower-beds. In or- 
der to protect his new capital, Birger Jarl 
drove down piles or ^^ stocks ^^ among the 
'' holms ^^ or islands; hence the name Stock- 
holm. 

I have had a most happy week here. Ini 
mediately opposite this Grand Hotel (which 
is one of the finest in Europe) is the Royal 
Palace. It is reached by the Noorbro bridge 
which spans one of the many waters of Stock- 
holm and which is known as the North River. 
I spent an hour in wandering through the 
royal apartments, one of which, called the 
^' White Sea,^^ is a magnificent saloon, a 
hundred and eighteen feet long, entirely 
in white and gold; when illuminated with 
lights and gorgeous costumes it must be 
a fairy scene. I was most interested in 
examining the private room of King Berna- 
dotte, filled with his various knicknacks and 
just in the condition that the old warrior 
left it. On his bed lies the blue mihtary 




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Stockholm. 241 

cloak that he wore in all his campaigns, and 
slept under every night for thirty years. It 
covered liim when he fell into the slumber 
of death. It is ordered that the old cloak 
shall never be taken from the room, but the 
moths are carrying it off piece-meal. The 
present King Oscar II. is an honest, capable 
ruler, who spares no pains to make himself 
popular with the people. The Queen is a 
devout Christian, and the King's sister, Prin- 
cess Eugenie, is a leader in various religious 
and philanthropic movements. There is not 
a purer Court in Europe. 

Over on the Riddarholm Island stands the 
venerable church which is called the West- 
minster Abbey of Sweden. It is a plain 
brick structure with a lofty spire of open 
iron- work. This is the sepulchre of the kings 
and the mighty men. In a sarcophagus of 
green Italian marble lies the dust of that 
glorious hero of the Protestant faith, Gus- 
tavus Adolphus, and over it are an hundred 
banners won on bloody fields. The rash and 
brilliant Charles XII . lies on the opposite 



242 The Nile to Norway. 

side of the nave; but Gustavus Adolphus is 
the popular idol. His manly figure appears, 
in either bronze or marble, in public squares 
all over the kingdom. At the National Mu- 
seum they show you a little brown nag that 
he rode in his last fatal fight at Lutzen; and 
close by the stuffed remains of the horse, 
lie the hero's clothes stained with his blood. 
His name will be linked in history with Wil- 
liam the Silent, Washington, and Lincoln. 

I had heard much of the great evangel- 
ical quickening which has been going on in 
Sweden during the last dozen years, and I 
am sorely disappointed in not meeting Pastor 
G. E. Beskow, who is one of its leading spir- 
its. He belongs to the National Lutheran 
ChiKch and is knowm as the Spurgeon of 
Sweden. His spacious church, which is usu- 
ally crowded with over three thousand audi- 
tors, stands in the rear of this hotel; but the 
building is closed for repairs, and the elo- 
quent pastor is absent from the city. The 
failure to meet this eminent leader of evan- 
gelicalism has been compensated by the de- 



Stockholm. 243 

lightful intercourse I have had with Profes- 
sor Kanute Broady of the Baptist Theological 
School and many of his brethren. Broady is 
better known here by the title of '' Colonel,'' 
as he commanded a regiment in the Army of 
the Potomac during our civil war. A finer 
specimen of a manly, genial Christian gentle- 
man I have never met than Col. Broady. Last 
week the Baptists — who number about twen- 
ty thousand communicants in Sweden — held 
their annual convention here. They kindly 
sent for me, and gave me such a greeting 
as these warm-hearted Norsemen only can. 
Col. Broady was good enough to say in his 
speech of introduction that my religious ar- 
ticles had been circulated in the Swedish 
language for the last twenty years. This was 
chiefly grateful to me a;s another vindica- 
tion of the policy of taking some time every 
week from pastoral duties for the religious 
press. A type is often equal to ten thou- 
sand tongues in spreading Gospel truth. 

Later in the same day I attended the an- 
nual collation of about one hundred Baptist 



244 The Nile to Norway. 

ministers at the Berzelius Hotel. It stands 
on a charming httle Park which contains 
a statue of Berzehus, the famous Swedish 
chemist. After my address at the dinner, a 
special prayer was offered for America by 
the venerable Mr. Palmquist, who is the 
founder of Sunday-schools in Sweden; it was 
a most fervent, soul-stirring petition. The 
next 'day these same brethren invited Dr. 
S. F. Smith of Boston, Prof. Thwing and 
myself, to join them in an excursion to 
Upsala. This ancient University town hes 
forty miles north of Stockholm; near it are 
the huge mounds which are the traditional 
tombs of Odin, Thor, and Freya — who are 
embalmed in our English calendar in the 
names of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. 
It is vacation- time at the University ; so 
I did not see the Professors or any of the 
fourteen hundred students. But I did see 
the Botanical Garden, and the tomb (in 
the Cathedral) of Linnceus. The trees and 
shrubs he planted are blooming still. Close 
by the Botanic Garden stands his marble 



Stockholm. 245 

statue; his benign face has a singular sweet- 
ness, as if he had studied flowers so long that 
theh^ beauty was reflected in his counte- 
nance. There is a marked advance in the 
theological teachings of the University to- 
wards the evangelical interpretation of God^s 
Word; and Rationalism is growing weaker, 
both there and among the ministers of the 
N^ational Church. As I had to return to 
Stockholm at an earlier hour than our 
party, I had for companion in the cars a 
devout Swedish pastor, whose stock of Eng- 
lish consisted of a few Bible texts. He com- 
menced the conversation by saying, '' Blessed 
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king- 
dom of heaven.'' To this I assented; and 
then he presently added — ''Goodness and 
mercy do follow me all the days of my hfe, 
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord 
forever.'' It was a brief conversation, but I 
have heard railroad talks much less edifying 
than his. 

Last Sabbath morning I attended St. Ja- 
cob's Lutheran Church which stands near 



246 The Nile to Norway. 

the statue of Charles XII. It was well 
filled, and I observed some of the Dale- 
carlian peasant- girls there in their pictur- 
esque costume. At least six psalms were 
sung during the service, and before each sing- 
ing, two little boys climbed up a ladder and 
hung the number of the psalm on the pillars 
each side of the pulpit. The sermon was to 
me in an unknown tongue, but the pastor 
was fervent in manner, and all the people 
attentive to hear him. In the evening I 
preached to an overflowing crowd in the 
Baptist Church; Col. Broady acting as my 
interpreter. It was my first experience in 
that kind of preaching by one sentence at 
a time, and then pausing for its translation. 
I felt like a bird tied to a gate-post, that 
is jerked back every time it should get to 
the length of its string. But the genial coun- 
tenances of the Scandinavians before me were 
an inspiration; and when they sang ^' Come 
thou fount of every blessing '^ in Swedish and 
to our familiar tune, I felt a little moist about 
the eyelids. I have formed a deep affection 



Stockholm. 247 

for these simple-hearted Baptists, who are 
enduring hardness for Christ's sake. Most 
of their pastors receive very small salaries 
and only preach at all by sufferance. The 
ecclesiastical laws of Sweden do not recog- 
nize or protect them; and if a priest of the 
Established (Lutheran) Church chooses to 
complain of them, they are liable to ar- 
rest and imprisonment ! I saw two of these 
godly men who had been "in bonds'' and 
fed on bread and water for the crime of 
preaching without permission. Happily this 
bigoted spirit of persecution is dying out. 

Yesterday I celebrated my Fourth of July 
by dining with our hospitable American 
Minister, the Hon. John L. Stevens. It was 
a sad day to us, for we had just received 
the terrible tidings of the attempted assas- 
sination of our noble President. The news 
awakens a profound sensation in the city, 
for Sweden is warmly allied to America. If 
such be the feeling here, what must it be in 
my own beloved land ! God grant that long 
ere this reaches my readers, the life of the 



248 The Nile to Norway. 

foremost man in our Union may be out of 
danger ! 

In April, 1865, the news of Abraham Lin- 
coln's assassination was telegraphed to our 
foreign Ministers — among others to the late 
Hon. William B. Kinney, Minister to Italy. 
He happened to be in the same town where 
the late Czar Alexander of Russia was stop- 
ping. He hastened to the Czar\s apartments, 
and said, ^^Sire! President Lincoln is assas- 
sinated ! '^ The Czar leaped from his chair, 
and exclaimed ^' Good God! that cannot be 
so.'' When Mr. Kinney showed him the 
telegram, he broke out into a fervid eulogy 
of Lincoln and wept like a child. How little 
he dreamed that the same diabohcal blow 
was yet to strike down himself! 

This afternoon I leave this delightful city 
for Gothenburg by the Gotha Canal, which 
traverses the finest scenery in Sweden. My 
travelling-companion is to be Dr. S. F. Smith, 
the author of ''My country, 'tis of thee." 
The venerable man is returning from a visit 
to his son, a missionary in Burmah. 



XXIII. - 

THE WARM HEARTS OF SWEDEN. 

Oothenburg, July 8. 

1\ /TY last letter did not by any means, 
•^ ^ -*" exhaust the noticeable attractions of 
Stockholm — a city that grew upon me every 
hour. One afternoon I went over to the^ 
** Mose-backe ^^ an elevated public garden on 
the island of ^^ Sodermalm/' This is a fa- 
vorite resort of the citizens and affords one of 
the finest outlooks of the Yenice of the 
North. On my way thither I passed the 
Hornsgatan, in which (at No. 43) the cele- 
brated mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg long 
resided. The house has been removed, but 
the summer-house in the garden, — which was 
the philosopher's favorite place of study — still 
remains. There he saw visions and dreamed 
dreams for many years; it is a sort of Mecca 

24:9 



250 The Nile to Norway. 

for all members of the '^New Jerusalem 
Church '' from various quarters of the globe. 
But although Swedenborg v/as a native of 
Stockholm and spent most of his life there, 
he left but a handful of followers. His 
mysticism was too impalpable for the solid 
and devout sense of the Swedes; and they 
were too well anchored in the knowledge 
of God^s Word to be led away by his phil- 
osophical vagaries. 

The hero of the popular worship in Swe- 
den is a man of the very opposite stamp — 
Gustavus Adolphus. In the very centre of 
the city, mounted on his bronze war-horse, 
stands the great Protestant leader, and on the 
anniversary of the battle of Lutzen (in which 
he fell) thousands of Swedes gather around 
this statue and sing the noble war -ode 
which he taught his soldiers. The old hero's 
ashes sleep in the Riddarholm church, and 
bear this happy inscription, ^^ In angustiis iu" 
travit^ pietatem amavit, Jiostes prostravit^ regnum 
dilatavitj succos exaltavit^ oppresses liberavit, 
moriens triumphavitJ^ *^He braved dangers 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 251 

— loved piety — overthrew his enemies — en- 
larged his kingdom — exalted his nation — 
liberated the oppressed, and triumphed in 
death/^ To him it is chiefly owing that 
Sweden and Norway are to-day the most 
intensely Protestant nations on the con- 
tinent. 

From the Mose-backe heights one gets a 
fine view of the new National Museum, 
which fronts the water on the Blaiseholmen 
terrace. It is built of granite and marble 
at a cost of over half a million of dollars. 
The vestibule, which is flanked by colossal 
statues of Odin, Thor, and Freya, is one 
of the most imposing that I have seen in 
Europe. In a long series of apartments 
are exhibited the various relics of the abo- 
rigines of Sweden. In one room are dis- 
played the relics of the bronze age (three 
centuries before the Christian era); of the 
earlier iron age, a.d. 600; and of the later 
iron age, from the sixth century to the 
tenth. Other rooms contain an extensive 
collection of ecclesiastical robes, censers, 



252 The Nile to Norway. 

chandeliers, and various religious vessels in 
copper, silver, and gold. The history of 
Sweden may be studied — as in a grand sys- 
tem of object-teaching — in the halls of that 
magnificent edifice. The collection of an- 
tiquities has been largely increased by a 
law which compels every finder of a val- 
uable relic or curiosity to deposit it in 
this Museum — its full value always being 
]3aid in cash. In the Picture-gallery, I was 
vastly more interested by the works of 
Lindegren and the other artists who de- 
pict Swedish life, than by all the importa- 
tions of old Italian masters. I had been 
surfeited with '^ Holy Families '' long before. 
Another building in which all the Stock- 
holmers take a just pride is the new Royal 
Library on the Humlegarden Park. Among 
the curiosities there is the '^ Codex Aureus,'' 
a Latin manuscript of the Gospels in gilt 
Gothic characters, and dating back to the 
sixth century. There is also a copy of the 
Bible which is claimed to be the hugest 
manuscript volume in the world. It is writ- 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 253 

ten on three hundred asses' hides, and cost 
the labor of the monks in a Bohemian 
monastery for four centuries. This monster 
volume is over two feet in thickness and it 
would tax a Constantinople porter to carry 
it. There is a copy of the Vulgate with 
abundant annotations in the handwriting of 
Martin Luther; and in that Library I saw, 
for the first time, one of the original books 
printed by Faust himself. It is a well 
printed copy of Cicero de Officiis and bears 
the date, 1461. 

Much as I was charmed with the scenery 
of Stockholm and its historical relics I was 
still more charmed with its people. Those 
of my countrymen who met Fredrika Bre- 
mer and Jenny Lind during their visits to 
America, saw in them the type of character 
which gives such attractiveness to Swedish 
society. 

I have come into contact with the warm 
Christian hearts of this people during the 
last ten days in a way that I shall grate- 
fully remember to my dying hour. I had 



254 The Nile to Norway. 

heard of the evangeUcal awakening in Swe- 
den during the last dozen years, but I was 
not prepared to find so fervid an atmosphere 
up in these regions bordering on the frozen 
poles. During the week I have seen much 
of such men as Professor Canute Broady, 
Prof. Theodore Truve, Pastor Lindblom, 
and Mr. Palmquist, the founder of Swedish 
Sunday-schools. On Sabbath evening last 
when I preached to a thronged audience in 
the principal Baptist church, it reminded 
me of a fervid revival service in America. 
''The people want to hear about nothing 
but Jesus,'' said Broady to me before I 
began, and I tried not to disappoint them. 
As the English sovereign is current coin in 
every land, so the name that is above every 
Qame is the key to every Christian heart 
around the globe. 

On Monday came the terrible tidings of 
the attempt upon the life of our noble Pres- 
ident. It produced a deep excitement over 
all Sweden, for there is a peculiarly cordial 
fellowship with a country to which forty 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 255 

thousand Scandinavians emigrate every year. 
During this week it has been very easy to 
recognize the telegrams from Washington in 
the Swedish daily papers — for they are print- 
ed in bolder and more conspicuous type than 
any other intelligence. The report of that 
fiendish pistol has hterally been heard around 
the world; from Christian America too, in a 
time of peace, it has an awful reverberation. 
What a volume of prayer is ascending heav- 
enward that a life so precious may be spared ! 
My companion in Stockholm has been the 
venerable Dr. S. F. Smith of Boston, the au- 
thor of our national hymn, ''My country, 'tis 
of thee.^' He tells me, by the way, that he 
wrote the lines now so famous while he was 
a student at Andover, and at the request of 
Lowell Mason — who asked him to compose 
something that would go to the air of " God 
save the King.'' Who changed the name of 
the air to '' America,'' I do not know. As 
Dr. Smith and myself were to leave for Goth- 
enburg on the same steamer — by the Gotha 
Canal — the noble-hearted brethren offered us 



256 The Nile to Norway. 

the kind compliment of a farewell entertain- 
ment. As we had prayed and sung together, it 
was arranged that we should break bread to- 
gether; and a fine collation was spread at the 
^^King Charles Hotel.'' Many of the active 
pastors of Stockholm, Christian laymen and 
their wives were present, and farewell ad- 
dresses were spoken that made our hearts 
like water. Not content w^ith this demon- 
stration at the Hotel, our irrepressible friends 
must needs accompany us to the Riddarholm 
wharf to see us off. The little steamer was 
packed with passengers, each of whom was 
blessed with friends. So the wharf was black 
with the people and white with waving hand- 
kerchiefs. I really felt as if I had known 
those loving friends for twenty years instead 
of ten days; and up in this far-away land such 
a demonstration of kindness in the Master's 
name was like an added verse to the Epis- 
tles of John the Beloved. 

Steaming away from our friends on the 
quay, we had a two hours' sail through beau- 
tiful Lake Maelar; it is lined with the villas 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 257 

of the wealthy residents of Stockholm, as the 
Hudson is lined with those of the millionaires 
of New York. After leaving the Lake our 
steamer threaded its way^ during the night, 
among the rocky islets in the Baltic. At 
-^^Mem'' the real canal commences; it is 
about fifty feet wide and ten feet deep, and 
it ascends and descends seventy-four locks 
between Stockholm and Gothenburg. After 
a few miles of canal we entered Lake Roxen, 
a charming sheet of water, in w^hich we sailed 
for an hour. At the end of the Lake we 
reach a series of locks, ascending like a stair- 
way for nearly one hundred feet. The pas- 
sengers all quit the boat for an hour's run 
on shore, while the locking process goes on. 
A charming tramp we have too, over fra- 
grant clovers whose blossoms mingle with 
daisies and a dozen varieties of flowers that 
load the air with perfume. Some of us wan- 
der off for half a mile to visit the ancient 
Wreta church, in which three old Norse 
Kings that died seven centuries ago lie bur- 
ied. On our return to the boat, a Swedish 



258 The Nile to Norway. 

peasant girl brings us refreshing tumblers 
of milk from a tidy farm-house. The peas- 
antry are a hard-toiling, frugal set, who earn 
a small return from their cold soil, but they 
are a virtuous, church-going people, and in 
solid worth are not surpassed by the peas- 
antry of any land. 

The whole afternoon of Wednesday was 
spent in alternate lake and canal until we 
reached the thrifty iron-manufacturing town 
of Motala. There we enter Lake Wetter, and 
after a halt beside the old Castle of Wad- 
stena — built by Gustavus Yasa in 1545 — we 
cross the lake in half an hour to Carlsborg. 
As we approach Carlsborg at ten o'clock, the 
sun has just set, but it has left an afterglow 
that fills the sky with brightness, and dyes 
the placid waters of the lake with a crimson 
glory. The light does not vanish away, even 
at midnight, but lingers on until it meets the 
day-dawn. The moon — almost full — instead 
of rising up toward the zenith as she does 
with us, turned backward and set below the 
horizon at eleven o'clock. These singular 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 259 

celestial phenomena arise from the fact that 
we are so near to the Arctic circle and to 
the region of perpetual day. 

Yesterday morning found us sailing across 
Lake Wenner, which is almost an hundred 
miles long. We had a fifty miles' experience 
of the lake and then entered the canal again 
at Wennersburg. We were now approaching 
the famous falls of Trolhattan, which are 
fairly equal to our Trenton Palls, in wild and 
picturesque beauty. While the boat is de- 
scending the locks, we all sally off to see 
the magnificent series of rapids and cascades, 
which extend for a quarter of a mile. The 
highest of the falls is about forty-four feet, 
but the volume of the water is so large, 
and the rocks throw such superb jets into 
the air that the effect is like a section of the 
Rapids of Niagara. Trolhattan signifies the 
**home of the water witches,'' and surely 
they could not have found a more bewitch- 
ing abode. During the last four hours of our 
trip, our little steamer was descending the 
Gotha River. I had heard much in America 



260 The Nile to Norway. 

of the fascinating scenery on the Gotha Ca- 
nal, and I acknowledge that it equalled my 
highest expectations. It is a succession of 
pictures for two and a half days that fill the 
photograph gallery of memory for a lifetime. 
The Americans who consume all their time 
in Paris and on the Rhine make a sad mis- 
take that they do not set their faces toward 
such a city as Stockholm, such scenery as 
the banks of the ''Grotha,^' and such a peo- 
ple as these noble-hearted Scandinavians. 

This morning found us at the wharf of 
Gothenburg — the Liverpool of Sweden. It 
is a busy city, and in its central square stands 
the figure of its illustrious founder, Gustavus 
Adolphus. This is the chief point of de- 
parture for the forty thousand emigrants who 
annually embark for America. My good 
steamship, the ^' Romeo,'' lies yonder — with 
steam up — for Hull and dear old England. 
Several hundreds of emigrants are thronging 
her forward decks; the wharf is crowded with 
kinsfolk to bid them farewell; on their boxes 
I see such names as ''Michigan'' and ''Min- 



The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 261 

nesota.'^ I do not wonder that many of 
them are weepmg; for after a fortnight's 
sojourn in this land, I can hardly keep back 
the tears at leaving the loarm hearts of 
Sweden. 



XXIV. 

THE GREENTH OF ENGLAND, 

** Tlfie Ivy Rouse,'* London, July 14. 

A T Gothenburg I took the fine new steam- 
-^^^ ship ^^ Romeo/' of Wilson's Line, for 
Hull in England. We had a smooth passage 
of forty-five hours, and the most luxurious 
state-rooms I have found during my journey- 
ings. Having passed forty-two nights in the 
berths of steamers since I left New York- — 
often '' shelved '' on a narrow board that sug- 
gested the processes of an undertaker — I am 
happy to pay this grateful tribute to the 
sleep-inspiring comforts of the Romeo. We 
ran up the Humber, which looks like pea- 
soup, against a strong tide, and I felt a 
buoyant thrill when my feet stood again on 
English soil. 

Hull was interesting to me as the birth- 

262 



The Greenth of England. 263 

place of William Wilberforce, and as the 
town in which my beloved friend Rev. New- 
man Hall (during his early ministry) wrote 
his world-known ''Come to Jesus. ^^ It was 
first suggested to him by hearing a group 
of primitive Methodists singing, at a meeting 
in the open street, the simple revival ditty 
of ''Come to Jesus just now.^^ To write 
that blessed little guide to inquiring souls 
was glory enough for one lifetime. I easily 
found the ancient smoky mansion in which the 
noble Wilberforce first saw the light; for it 
is now used for law offices, and is called the 
** Wilberforce Building.'' There is also a 
lofty monument to the Emancipator in the 
heart of the city. 

I have had many a charming ride through 
the greenth of old England in the summer; 
but never one that equalled my ride this 
week on the Midland road through York- 
shire, Derbyshire, Leicester, Rutland, North- 
ampton and Bedfordshire up to London. 
The day was perfect; the summer sun abso- 
lutely glorified the verdant fields, and hedge- 



264 The Nile to Norway. 

rows, and lawns, and groves of oak; tlie 
beauty of the scenery almost blinded me! 
As we passed through the sweet emerald 
valley of the Ouse, the air was perfumed 
with the memories of Cowper and Newton 
and Legh Richmond. Then we ran into Bed- 
ford where Bunyan dreamed the wondrous 
dream. That day was one unbroken festival 
of eye and soul; and after all I had seen 
in the Orient, and the Tyrol, and the North- 
ern lands, I said to myself — " The paradise 
of rural beauty is to be found in Shake- 
speare's and Milton's England.'' 

A great many elements enter into the com- 
position of an English landscape. In the 
first place the Creator gave our British an- 
cestors a goodly heritage of mingled hills 
and vales and running streams that are 
blended together after the most perfect ideal. 
Then he bestowed a climate so mild and yet 
so moist that the foliage and the grass are 
kept up to the color of a deep emerald 
during the largest portion of the year. Such 
midsummer droughts as we suffer are very 



The Greenth of England. 265 

rare in this climate. For five centuries cul- 
tivation has been busy upon these charming 
fields, — planting hedges, and trimming them, 
grouping trees for picturesque effect, building 
walls, turning waste places into gardens, and 
so beautifying every acre that as Emerson 
says, "England is finished with a pencil in- 
stead of a plough.^^ An universal taste for 
flowers prevails; in the humblest cottage-win- 
dows are boxes of scarlet geraniums; over 
almost every doorway climb flowering plants, 
and as for the rural railway-stations they 
are an horticultural show. Every station- 
master would seem to be a florist. It made 
me ashamed of the forlorn shabbiness that 
surrounds most of the railway depots in my 
own land. 

Nature has done wonders for the English 
landscapes, and art has wrought in harmony. 
Eere an old Gothic church lifts its tower 
amid the oaks; there an Elizabethan man- 
sion heads an ascending lawn; there a grace- 
ful bridge of stone arches some clear silver}^ 
Avon or Dee or Trent; even if a cottage be 



266 The Nile to Norway. 

two centuries old it wears its thatched crown 
gracefully. To this perfection of rural love- 
liness our mother country has arrived after 
twenty generations have expended their ut- 
most toil, and taste and skill. 

One shadow is beginning to spread over 
this sunny picture. The ''landed interest 
of Great Britain is becoming involved in pe- 
cuniary difficulties and embarrassments that 
threaten ruin to many landlords, and have 
already driven some into bankruptcy. For 
many years land increased in value until 
it was regarded as the most profitable and 
secure of investments. But the immense 
importation of breadstuffs and beef and ba- 
con from American prairies has so dimin- 
ished the profits of British agriculture that 
the farmer and the land-owner are alike the 
sufferers. Rents are coming down. Farm- 
ng lands have lost thirty and often forty 
per cent of their value. Added to this has 
been an almost uniform succession of bad 
harvests. Many of the great estates are 
embarrassed with mortgages and other liens 



The Greenth of England. 267 

upon the land; and under these accumulated 
difficulties ancient families of the ''gentry'^ 
are forced to sell off the manor-houses in 
which their ancestors have dwelt for many 
generations. To-day the most urgent and 
exciting questions, not only in Ireland but 
in England too, are those which Concern 
the ownership and the pecuniary manage- 
ment of all those beautiful green acres on 
which my eyes feasted with such delight. 

As I passed through the very heart of 
England on my way from Hull, I could 
not but think how rich had been the men- 
tal and spiritual harvests gathered from those 
old historic fields ! Nearly every town has 
placed books in our libraries, or in some 
way enriched our memories. When I read 
the name of ^^ Kettering'^ on the station- 
sign I thought of old Andrew Fuller^s eight 
volumes of solid theology. Northampton 
suggested Doddridge and his '^Kise and 
Progress.'^ At Bedford I was in the birth- 
place of both John Howard and the ''Pil- 
grim '^ of John Bunyan. Not far away were 



268 The Nile to Norway. 

the green fields where Cowper mused over 
the ^'Task'' and the '^Ohiey Hymns.'' Rob- 
ert Hall, Lord Macaulay, Marvell, and Kh^ke 
White had all been born and reared in the 
regions through which we ran; and from 
amid the smoke of Sheffield had come forth 
the musical notes of Elliott and Montgom- 
ery. All these memories added new charms 
to the verdant landscape that smiled under 
the summer sun. 

I was glad to reach London in time for 
the annual gathering of the friends of Tem- 
perance at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. 
On Wednesday about fifty thousand mem- 
bers of the various organizations- — Templars, 
Bands of Hope, the League and the ^* Alli- 
ance,'' with numberless badges and banners 
— swarmed in the Palace and the surrounding 
Park. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the champion of 
the Local Option movement in Parliament, 
presided at the meeting in the great music- 
hall and made a capital speech. He is a 
man of ready wit and indomitable persever- 
ance. I feel quite sure that somewhere in 



The Greenth of England. 269 

an English quarry is the stone which shall 
yet build to Sir "Wilfrid a monument as well 
deserved as that of Wilberforce at Hull. 
After his speech I was called on to say a 
few words for America and the only thing 
I shall note here was the tremendous cheer- 
ing that followed my mention of the name 
of President Garfield. The whole audience 
rose, and fairly shook the building with the 
roar. You can hardly conceive in America 
what a profound and universal feeling has 
been aroused throughout Great Britain by 
that fiendish assault on the life of our Presi- 
dent. It renews and repeats the days in 
1865, when Lincoln fell under the assassin^s 
pistol. From the throne to the cottage one 
deep, heartfelt sympathy and righteous indig- 
nation has been awakened." 

Returning to town with Sir Wilfrid I 
found him greatly encouraged by the pro- 
gress of temperance sentiment in Britain. 
Especially is the movement spreading among 
the churches and the more influential classes. 
For several days I hope to enjoy the pure 



270 The Nile to Norway. 

air and outlook of this Hampstead Hill on 
which my brother Newman HalFs ''Ivy 
House ^' is situated. He resides five miles 
from his church (on Westminster Road) in 
order to obtain wholesome air and quiet. 
From my window I can see colossal London 
spreading away for twelve miles toward the 
south! The roar of its life — with four and 
a half millions of souls — is like the roar of 
Niagara. 



XXV. 

DRIVES ABOUT LONDON. 

Eampstead Hill, July 18. 

A LTHOUGH I have visited London sev- 
•^^^ eral times during the last thirty 
years, I never before had such an ade- 
quate conception of its enormous magnitude. 
It is really a dozen cities rolled into one. 
The residents of ^'Hoxton'^ know as little 
of those who live in the district of ^ ^ Clap- 
ham/' several miles away, as the people of 
Brooklyn do of the dwellers in Newark, ISTew 
Jersey. I am staying up here on cool, 
breezy Hampstead Hill — so near to the 
country that we can look out over green 
fields to Harrow. Turning southward, we 
look toward St. Paul's lofty dome, and in 
that direction, for many miles we see the 
smoking chimneys of the mighty metropohs. 

271 



272 The Nile to Norway. 

It grows at the rate of 100,000 inhabitants 
each year ! 

This part of the city is rich in historical 
memories. Once Hampstead and Highgate 
were clear out of town. I passed yesterday 
a gin-palace that stands on the site of the 
house to which poor Steele (one of the au- 
thors of the ''Spectator'') used to flee out 
of London to hide from his creditors. Mr. 
Hall drove me ' the other evening through 
Highgate, which was a rural suburb forty 
years ago. We passed the former residences 
of Lord Erskine, the king of British lawyers, 
and of Lord Mansfield, the king of British 
judges. A little farther on we passed the 
modest brick house in which Coleridge 
dreamed away the closing years of his life. 
Thither came Charles Lamb and Carlyle to 
hear the old poet-philosopher harangue by 
the hour. Five minutes walk brings you to 
a two-story mansion called Lauderdale House; 
there lived the notorious Nell Gwynn, and 
thither came that royal rake Charles IL to 
pay her clandestine visits. 



Drives about London. 273 

Exactly opposite this dwelling of a king's 
mistress, stands ''Cromwell House/' which 
the great Protector built for his son-in-law, 
Ireton. The stairway is very broad, and 
rich in carved woods; up it the iron heel of 
the greatest ruler England ever had, has 
tramped many a time. A few rods from 
Lauderdale House are three stone steps left 
beside the pavement; they are all that is 
left of the residence of Andrew Marvell, the 
grand old poet of Puritanism. They lead 
also to that ''Garden'' about which he 
penned this exquisite poem. 

**Wliat wondrous life is this I lead! 
Kipe apples drop about my head; 
The luscious clusters of the vine 
Upon my mouth do crush their wine; 
The nectarine and curious peach 
Into my hands themselves do reach: 
Stumbling on melons as I pass, 
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. 

"Here at this fountain's sliding foot, 
Or at the fruit tree's mossy root, 
Casting the body's vest aside, 
My soul into the boughs does glide. 



274 The Nile to Norway. 

There like a bird it sits and sings, 
And whets and claps its silver wings; 
And, till prepared for longer flight, 
Waves in its plumes the various light. 

*'How well the skilful gard'ner drew 
Of flowers and herbs this dial true ! 
Where, from above, the milder sun 
Does through a fragrant zodiac run; 
And, as it works, the industrious bee 
Computes his time as well as we. 
How could such sweet and wholesome hours 
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers ! '* 



I set my foot on those three steps with 
reverence, for the feet of OHver Cromwell 
and of John Milton had often trod there. 
But what a combination of names in one 
spot — Cromwell and Charles Stuart — Milton 
and Nell Gwynn! 

On our homeward way we passed an inn 
called the ^'Spaniard/' and attached to it is 
a small building looking like a porter ^s lodge. 
That was a favorite spot with Dr. Johnson 
when he used to come out of busy London 
to the rural regions of Hampstead Hill; 
since his day that diminutive room has echoed 



Drives about London. 275 

to the merriment of Charles Lamb, Charles 
Dickens, and many another literary celebrity. 
As we came opposite an old mansion half- 
hidden among the trees, Mr. Hall pointed to 
a projecting bay-window in the second story 
and said, "When the Earl of Chatham was 
suffering from a severe mental depression 
he was brought to that house, and for weeks 
he sat in that bay-window looking out upon 
these trees. '^ And so every rood of our drive 
brought us in contact with some spot asso- 
ciated with the most illustrious names in 
English history and letters. 

On Thursday we drove down to Hyde 
Park at the hour when all the rank and fash- 
ion there do congregate. We found the 
great drive was being kept clear by police- 
men, and it was lined by an expectant crowd. 
Presently her Majesty Queen Yictoria ap- 
peared, in her royal coach and four, and 
attended by the splendid retinue of Life- 
Guards. The Queen has become very stout, 
and the fair brown hair is turning gray. The 
royalest thing about her is her pure, kind, 



276 The Nile to Norway. 

exemplary womanhood. She was on her 
way to a garden-party at the Prince of 
Wales's Marlborough House, and we drove 
down there to see some of the '^ high-bloods ^^ 
arrive and depart. Among them was the 
celebrated beauty, Lady Dudley; she is cer- 
tainly very fair and comely, but I could 
easily find her match in Brooklyn. 

From thence we went to the Metropolitan 
Tabernacle to hear Mr. Spurgeon deliver his 
Thursday Evening lecture. It was a hot 
week-day evening in midsummer, and yet 
over two thousand people were present ! 
Mr. Spurgeon is now in vigorous health, and 
gave us a capital extemporaneous talk upon 
Ezekiel xlvii. 11. During his lecture he told 
a racy anecdote about a quack inventor of 
a cough-medicine, and he mimicked the fel- 
low's cough so well that it created some 
merriment. But the discourse was exceed- 
ingly pungent, and close to the conscience. 
After service I had a pleasant chat with 
him, and hope to spend part of Saturday 
with him at his house near Sydenham Palace. 



Drives about London. 277 

Our next drive was to Parliament. There 
was a tolerably full House, and the Irish 
Land bill was under discussion in Committee 
of the whole. John Bright sjDoke briefly; the 
ruddy cheeks of the great Commoner bespeak 
good health, and his hair is as Avhite as 
snow. During a brief talk with him in 
the lobby I ventured to say to him that the 
greatest mistake of his life was his refusal 
of the invitation of our Government to visit 
America after our civil war. Much of the 
debate was conducted by the Irish members 
— the irrej)ressible Parnell speaking very 
often. Mr. Gladstone came in late, attired 
in a full suit of gray, and looking very hap- 
py as he greeted his ministerial colleagues. 
But the tedious pettifogging of the Irish 
members presently aroused him, and he rose 
and let fly a most indignant rebuke. The 
greatest of living statesmen is full of fire, and 
is good for another ten years of public service. 

On Saturday we went to Putney — near 
which the University boat-race is always run 
— to attend the opening of a new wing of 



278 The Nile to Norway. 

the ''Royal Hospital for Incurables." The 
country around Putney is charming, and 
the Hospital stands in a velvet park, such 
as verdant England only can boast. The 
lions on the occasion were Prince Arthur 
and his royal wife; they are known as Duke 
and Duchess of Connaught. The band of 
the Coldstream Guards gave us capital mu- 
sic, and the audience were addressed by the 
Prince in a very fluent and excellent speech. 
His young wife — who was dressed with ex- 
cessive and becoming plainness — sat by a 
table and received the donations which were 
handed to her by the guests, as they filed 
along. Over $20,000 was handed in! The 
Prince presided at the luncheon in a large 
tent, and gave us another good speech. He 
looks exceedingly like his royal mother. 

Yesterday was a bright, golden Sabbath. 
As my dear friend, Mr. Hall, had given up 
his week to me, it was but fair that I should 
preach for him. ''Christ Church, Westmin- 
ster," is a noble edifice and its tall Lincoln 
Tower is conspicuous over all of southern ^ 



Drives about London. 279 

London. In the audience yesterday I rec- 
ognized that eminent Christian philanthropist, 
the Hon. Samuel Morley, Member of Parlia- 
ment. Mr. Morley will visit our country in 
August, and is sure of a hearty reception. 
He stood by us manfully during our war. 
Adjoining Rev. Newman Hall's church is 
^'Hawkestone Hall/^ which he uses for his 
prayer-meetings and Sunday-school. They 
have also several mission-schools. The sing- 
ing yesterday was admirable — being con- 
ducted by a choir of forty persons, and in 
the hymns the congregation joined. Brother 
Hall — although a Congregationalist — contin- 
ues to use the hturgy which his predecessor, 
Rowland Hill, introduced. He is the one 
clergyman in England who always prays for 
our President and for the ^'people of the 
United States of America.^' With what deep 
feeling did the large assembly join in the 
prayer for our beloved Garfield yesterday ! 
Between the services at Christ Church I 
went over to Westminster Abbey, where, at 
3 o'clock, the Bishop of Kentucky delivered 



280 The Nile to Norway. 

a very eloquent discourse. After the ser- 
vice the chorister Kfted the mat on the cen- 
tral aisle of the Abbey that I might see the 
tomb of the heroic missionary to Africa, David 
Livingstone, I had a few words with Canon 
Farrar, whom I hope to hear next Sabbath. 
He is a tall, muscular man, with genial face 
and ringing voice. Calling to leave our cards 
at the Deanery, we were saddened to learn 
that Dean Stanley was worse, and grave 
apprehensions are felt in regard to his sit- 
uation. The death of Dean Stanley would 
be a calamity not only to Britain, but to 
all Christendom. I loved him more than 
ever when I looked yesterday at the tablet 
to John and Charles Wesley, which he had 
erected in Westminster Abbey. 

It contains the medallion portraits of the 
twain founders of Methodism. Beneath a 
bas-relief — representing John Wesley as 
preaching to a crowd of Cornish miners — 
is the inscription *^the whole world is my 
parish." At the foot of the tablet are his 
last words — *^Best of all, God is with us.'' 



XXVI. 

CAMBRIDGE— THE SAVOY—MR. SPURGEON, 

London, July 25. 

/^N Wednesday I took a delightful run 
^^ to Cambridge. My first point was to 
visit Christ Church College, at the farther 
end of whose velvet grounds stands the mul- 
berry-tree which Milton planted. They have 
heaped a mound around the veteran's trunk 
and propped up his limbs, but the leaves 
show no signs of withering. Thence I went 
to feast my eyes once more on the exquisite 
tracery in the stone roof of King^s College 
Chapel — the gem of Gothic art. But oh! 
what a vision of loveliness is the park of 
Trinity College, with its emerald turf, and 
lofty oaks, and winding river Cam! Under 
those shades strolled Henry Martyn and his 
friend Charles Simeon; among the graduates 

281 



282 The Nile to Norway. 

of this famous college were Lord Bacon, Sir 
Isaac Newton, Byron and Macaulay. The 
chapel had just been locked up, but one of 
the servants admitted me by a back-door, 
and I found myself in an apartment where 
Bacon, Whewell and Macaulay in solid mar- 
ble, were seated side by side. Bacon sat 
with uplifted head as if meditating the 
*' Novum Organum '^ ; Prof. Whewell was 
seemingly busy over a mathematical prob- 
lem, and Lord Macaulay was thrusting his 
fingers into a volume whose marble leaves 
w^ere a happy emblem of the immortality 
of his own History of England. I peeped 
into the great dining-hall, whose walls are 
lined with the portraits of illustrious gradu- 
ates; across the passageway came savory 
odors from the huge kitchens. In the Uni- 
versity library is the ^' Codex Beza'' ; on its 
wall hangs the sweet boyish face of Henry 
Martyn; I found William Pitt's room up in 
'' Pembroke, '^ but I was sorry that I could 
not find the room in which young Oliver 
Cromwell put on his armor for a conflict 



Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 283 

with tyranny which gave and received *^no 
quarter/' 

London overflows with history at every 
turn. Every time I walk down the hill to 
the Underground Railway Station I pass a 
seat on which poor Keats often sat, and 
a row of trees under which he loved to walk 
in melancholy reverie. The other day I 
turned out of Fleet Street into Bolt Court, 
to find the house of Dr. Samuel Johnson. A 
well-dressed youth of seventeen said to me 
gravely, ''Up at the head of the Court in 
Gough Square is the house in which Dr. 
Johnson used to live, but I don't know just 
where he lives nowy The poor fellow looked 
a little sheepish when he read the inscription 
on the front of an old brick house — "Dr. 
Johnson once lived here; he died a. d. 1784. '' 

The Thames embankment is now the finest 
drive and promenade in the city. Upon one 
side of it, in a most unfavorable position, 
stands the Egyptian obelisk — the twin of 
ours in Central Park. I walked along the 
embankment, among the trees and flowers, 



284 The Nile to Norway. 

until I came to the statue of Robert Raikes 
— which was erected last year, by the friends 
of Sunday -Schools. The benefactor of the 
little ones will soon find himself in good 
company, for it is proposed to place quite 
near him, a statue of John Wycliflf, the morn- 
ing star of the Reformation. As I turned 
off the embankment towards the Strand, I 
discovered, on my left, a small burial-ground, 
and just beside it a quaint stone church with 
a stumpy tower. Inquiring of a passer-by 
what it was, he informed me that it was 
the old church of ''The Savoy.'' Happy in- 
deed I was to find that the march of improve- 
ment which is sweej)ing away so many land- 
marks, had spared this choice bit of antiquity. 
Away back in the reign of King Henry the 
Third, the famous Savoy Palace stood on that 
spot. Edward the Black Prince brought the 
King of France there as a captive in 1356; 
John of Graunt lived there; and during his 
residence the poet Chaucer was married there 
to a lady in the household of the Duchess 
of Lancaster. Stow tells us that no hous^ 



Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 285 

*'in the realm could be compared to it in 
beauty and stateliness.'^ "Wat Tyler's rebels 
burnt the palace, but Henry YII. rebuilt it 
as a hospital. After the restoration of 
Charles II. the celebrated Savoy Conference 
was held in that building, for the revision 
of the Liturgy. Episcopalians and Noncon- 
formists joined in the work, and Richard 
Baxter drew up, in a few days, that reformed 
Liturgy which Dr. Johnson pronounced one 
of the finest compositions of the kind he 
had ever seen. 

Of all these five centuries of history the 
little church of ^'St. Mary le Savoy ^^ is the 
successor and survivor. Thomas Fuller, one 
of the wittiest and most original of British 
authors held the weekly lectureship of the 
Savoy in the days of Charles First and has 
added the fragrance of his genius to the 
savory memories which cling around the 
quaint old structure. Few places in London 
carry one farther back into the shadows of 
the past than this. The turmoil and traffic 
of the Strand were roaring within a few 



286 The Nile to Norway. 

yards of me; but in that quiet side-nook I 
seemed to be still in company with the chiv- 
alrous Black Prince, with Master Chaucer 
and his bride, and with the godly men who 
gathered around Richard Baxter to shape the 
petitions of the English Church. Perhaps 
two or three centuries hence some tourist 
from Japan may explore Trinity Church in 
New York with the same interest that I 
visited the ancient '^ Savoy.'' 

Before I dismiss these historical explora- 
tions let me say that I paid a visit to Ab- 
ney Park Cemetery the burial place of fa- 
mous Nonconformists. Dr. Thomas Binney 
slumbers there, and Dr. Raleigh, and Sir 
Charles Reed, and John Yine Hall, the au- 
thor of the ^^ Sinner's Friend.'' It was once 
the private park of the Sir Thomas Abney 
whom Dr. Watts went to visit, and the visit 
was protracted to twenty or thirty years. 
In one corner of the park is a mound of 
earth sheltered by a spreading tree; a gran- 
ite tablet bears this inscription ^^This was a 
favorite retirement of Dr. Isaac Watts. '^ 



Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 287 

There the pensive bachelor loved to read 
and meditate, and there he composed some 
of his immortal hvmns. 

I cannot get accustomed yet to the loss of 
^'Temple Bar/' and that frightful object, like 
a witch of Endor which has taken its jol^ce, 
is no improvement. But a change for the 
better is the removal of the Young Men^s 
Christian Association from their old and 
cramped quarters in Aldersgate Street to the 
spacious Exeter Hall in the Strand. The 
original rooms are indeed still used, but 
the Exeter Hall is now the headquarters 
of this world-known organization. A con- 
venient chapel for prayer-meetings and Bible- 
class instruction has been constructed; a fine 
reading-room and tea-room are across the 
main hall; a gymnasium is on the lower 
floor, and up on the second floor still re- 
mains that celebrated Hall (capable of hold- 
ing three thousand) which has rung with 
the eloquence of Guthrie, Gavazzi, Gough, 
Beecher, Spurgeon and the most noted plat- 
formers of the last forty years. 



288 The Nile to Norway. 

Saturday afternoon was the most thor- 
oughly enjoyable one I have spent m Eng- 
land. Mr. Hall drove me through South 
London to the beautiful villa of Mr. Spurgeon 
at Upper Norwood, near the Sydenham Crys- 
tal Palace. Mr. Spurgeon purchased it a 
year ago in exchange for his house at Clap- 
ham; and it is a rural paradise. The great 
preacher, with a jovial countenance came out 
of his door with both hands outstretched to 
give us welcome. Saturday afternoon is his 
holiday. For an hour he conducted us over 
his delightful grounds, and through his gar- 
den and conservatory, and then to a rustic 
arbor, where he entertained us with one 
of his racy talks which are as characteristic 
as his sermons. It may be no breach of 
privacy to give his estimate of the New Re- 
vision, which he pronounces a most valuable 
help to the study of the New Testament, but 
needing to be itself somewhat revised be- 
fore it can come into universal use. He em- 
phatically approves of the suggestions of the 
American revisers, and regrets that they had 



Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 289 

not been generally adopted by their English 
associates. This feeling is expressed by many 
eminent clergymen whom I meet here. 

Mr. Spurgeon^s study is a charming apart- 
ment opening out on his lawn; the view ex- 
tends for twelve miles to Epsom Downs. His 
parlor too is lined with elegant volumes. He 
showed us with great glee a portfolio of 
caricatures of himself; and then by way of 
contrast, a series of translations of his ser- 
mons in various foreign tongues. His comely 
wife — for a long time a suffering invalid — 
presided at the table with grace and sweet- 
ness; their twin sons have already entered 
the ministry, one in London and the other 
now in New Zealand. It was six o^clock 
on Saturday when we bade him ^' good bye/' 
and he assured us that he had not yet selected 
even the texts for his next day's discourses ! 
^'I shall go down in the garden presently/' 
said he, " and arrange my morning discourse 
and choose a text for that in the evening; 
then to-morrow afternoon, before preaching, 
I will make an outline of the second one." 



290 The Nile to Norway. 

This is quite in conformity with his custom 
of preparing his discourses. He selects his 
text — often towards the close of Saturday 
— and devotes a half hour to arranging his 
heads or divisions, and jotting them down 
on a small bit of paper. Two of these out- 
lines which he gave to me, are written on 
the backs of letter-envelopes. He told us 
that he ' ^ would rather be hung than attempt 
to write a sermon '^ and that he had never 
pre-composed a single sentence before enter- 
ing the pulpit. '^If I had a month given 
me to prepare a sermon'' said he, ^^I would 
spend thirty days and twenty-three hours on 
something else, and in the last hour I would 
make the sermon. If I could not do it in 
an hour I could not do it in a month." This 
is certainly a remarkable mental habit and 
one which none of the rest of us had better 
try to imitate. But it must also be borne 
in mind that Mr. Spurgeon is a perpetual 
student. If he spends but a few moments 
in arranging a discourse, he spends much 
of each week in the most thorough and 



Cambridge— Mr. Spurgeon. "291 

prayerful study of God's Word and in dili- 
gent reading of the richest writers (especially 
of the Puritan era), on theology and experi- 
mental religion. He is all the time filling 
up his cask, and when the emergency comes 
he has only to turn the spigot and draw. 
It is not easy to exhaust a man who is 
always filling his head and heart from God's 
inexhaustible reservoir. Mr. Spurgeon was 
never more fertilizing in his ministry than 
he is at present; the two discourses which 
he dehvered on the day after we visited him 
were up to his highest mark. I parted from 
him with fresh gratitude for seeing once more 
the man who, by tongue and pen, has brought 
the precious gospel to more souls than any 
man since the days of the Apostles. 



XXVII. 

DEAN STANLEY. 

London^ July^ 25. 

A WEEK ago yesterday, after the second 
-^-^ service in Westminster Abbey, I went 
through to the door of the Deanery, to in- 
quire after the Dean and to leave a mes- 
sage for him. No one felt any uneasiness 
about him, and a few moments previously 
Canon Farrar had told me that he was do- 
ing well. Just as we reached the door a 
bulletin was posted up that unfavorable 
symptoms had set in and grave apprehen- 
sions were entertained as to the issue. 
^' Ah ! '' said Newman Hall to me, *' our 
good friend, the Dean, is going to die.'^ 
The next night, before the clock struck 
twelve, he was dead! 

The whole nation was shocked and sad- 



Dean Stanley. 293 

dened to tlie Heart; for on many accounts 
Dean Stanley was the best-loved man in 
the Church of England. He was the per- 
sonal friend of the Queen, the tutor of the 
Prince Royal, the advocate of cordial fel- 
lowship among all denominations, the most 
simple, modest, and affectionate great man 
in the realm. His genius everybody ad- 
mired; but his pure, sweet character every- 
body loved. So, for a week past great 
preparations have been making to give to 
the good Dean's remains such a burial cer- 
emony as should bespeak the nation's af- 
fection and be worthy of the guardian of 
the great Abbey. The services really began 
yesterday morning, with an eloquent sermon 
by Canon Farrar, in which he extolled the 
moral courage of the Dean in standing by 
his honest convictions. In the afternoon I 
found the choir of the Abbey packed, and 
the adjoining transepts also. Presently Dr. 
Vaughan, the Dean of LlandafF and preacher 
in the Temple Church, ascended the pulpit 
so long occupied by his beloved friend, Stan- 



294 The Nile to Norway. 

ley. Yaughan and Stanley were classmates 
at Rugby under Dr. Arnold, and their in- 
timacy was very deep and cordial. It was 
a very trying occasion for Dr. Yaughan, 
and when he announced that he would 
preach on the very text that Dean Stan- 
ley had selected for his next discourse 
there he was very much overcome. It was 
a happy text for the hour: *' Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God.^^ 
The famous preacher of the Temple is a 
fine, manly speaker and his style is almost 
perfect; so the discourse was a model fu- 
neral tribute. He happily said that Stanley 
had given perpetuity to Dr. Arnold's fame 
by writing his biography, and to Dr. Ar- 
nold's system of teaching by a living illus- 
tration of its beauty. In dwelling on the 
certainty of immortality, Dr. Yaughan ex- 
claimed, with impassioned fervor: ^^Oh! 
what a wanton waste it were if such an 
intellect as Arthur Stanley's were destroyed! '^ 
The discourse was heard with deep emotion, 
and when it was through many of the au- 



Dean Stanley. 295 

dience, doubtless, said to themselves: '^ There 
stands the man to be the next Dean of 
Westminster/'^ 

To-day, at four o'clock, the funeral service 
took place. Around the Abbey a vast mul- 
titude had assembled; not merely attracted 
by curiosity, for the Dean was a great fa- 
vorite with the working classes. Thousands 
had applied for tickets of admission, and by 
the kindness of Canon Farrar and the timely 
attentions of one of the subordinates I se- 
cured an excellent seat in the front of the 
gallery over the Poet's Corner. It com- 
manded a view of the whole ceremonies. 
Immediately below me was the tomb of Lord 
Macaulay, with its well-known inscription: 
''His body is buried in peace and his name 
liveth for evermore." Sir Charles Trevelyan, 
the biographer of the great historian, was 
among the group of mourners. Beside Ma- 
caulay lie Campbell and Dickens, and upon 
them looks down the statue of Shakespeare. 

1 Dr. Vanglian afterwards declined the honor when offered 
to him. 



296 The Nile to Norway. 

The crowd in the Abbey was prodigious. 
Many of the guests dimbed on the monu- 
ments, to witness the ceremonies. After long 
and patient waiting, we heard the funeral 
anthem sounding through the nave, and pres- 
ently the procession entered. It contained 
the foremost living men of England. The 
heir to the throne marched in and occupied 
the pew of his old tutor, who was lying in 
the coffin before him. Upon the coffin were 
wreaths of ^ immortelles,'^ and white flowers 
from the Westminster school boys, and a 
handful of Chinese roses from the Queen her- 
self. The venerable Archbishop of Canter- 
bury was in the line. Lord Shaftesbury, and 
Lord Houghton, and Tyndall, and Browning, 
and the Bishop of Peterborough. The coffin 
was borne by the same hands that had car- 
ried the Dean's beloved wife. Lady Augusta, 
to her burial, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. 
It was set down before the pulpit in which 
the Dean had stood a few days before. 

By the foot of the coffin the most con- 
spicuous figure was William E. Gladstone. 



Dean Stanley. 297 

He was called away before the service was 
over, and hastened to the House of Com- 
mons. (The pilot cannot leave the helm 
while the ship of state is off that Irish lee 
shore.) The funeral music to-day was sol- 
emn and sublime. Its rich strains swelled 
and roUed among the lofty arches with pro- 
digious grandeur. Then the deep tones of 
the ''Dead March '^ were heard, and the pro- 
cession formed again. The body of Arthur 
Stanley was taken up and tenderly car- 
ried over those historic stones, which he 
himself had trodden so often and so long. 
He was to be laid among the great, in his 
death. 

With slow and measured tread, they bore 
him past the tomb of Dryden. Old Spenser, 
and Ben Jonson, and the author of the ''El- 
egy in a Country Churchyard '^ were sleep- 
ing close by. A little further on, they passed 
the tomb of Edward the Confessor. The 
heir to the Confessor's throne was in the 
procession, and the descendants too of many 
a great warrior who lay in silent stone effigy 



298 The Nile to Norway. 

on those monuments. Gradually the line 
passed on and on among the columns, until 
it entered the door of Henry the Seventh^s 
Chapel and disappeared from my view. 

As I looked at the dark-palled coffin, with 
its fragrant burden of flowers, vanishing out 
of sight I felt a peculiar grief; for, — wide as 
were our differences of opinion on some vital 
points of doctrine — the Dean had been to me 
a very kind and beloved friend. I had broken 
bread with him in his hospitable home. I 
had enjoyed with him a memorable visit to 
the Jerusalem Chamber; and on his last day 
in America he had gone with me to Green- 
wood and had asked me to conduct him to 
the grave of Dr. Edward Robinson, and to 
the spot where slumbers my own beloved 
child. A few years ago, a correspondence 
passed between us which only heightened my 
esteem for both his meekness, and his man- 
liness. Amid all the adulations of court and 
aristocracy he never lost the devout simpli- 
city of a minister of the living God, A gen- 
tler, sweeter, and more unselfish heart I have 



Dean Stanley. 299 

seldom known; and no man has been laid to 
his rest amid more sincere lamentations, in all 
this realm, for many a year than Arthur 
Penrhyn Stanley. Of him too it may be 
said that his body is buried in peace, but his 
name doth hve on for evermore. 



XXVIII. 

THE DRINK-QUESTION IN MANY LANDS. 

Londouy July 27. 

*^ Ty^EEP your eye upon the drink-ques- 
^ -^ tion wherever you go '^ was a coun- 
sel which I did not need, for I have always 
made this a matter of careful observation 
when travelling in foreign lands. A con- 
firmed teetotaler from my youth I shall 
return home with increased convictions that 
the practice of total abstinence from all in- 
toxicants is a wise practice for all ages, climes, 
and conditions. Some Americans who do not 
habitually use wines or brandies at home, 
become so alarmed at the idea that the water 
in certain countries will work them mischief 
that they do not risk the experiment of using 
it, and begin at once to take a little wine — 
or more — ^^ for their stomach's sake.'' Hav- 

300 




Egyptian Water Vender. 



Nile to Norway. 



P 302. 



The Drink-Question. 301 

ing none of these imaginary fears, I have 
adhered to that honest wholesome beverage 
that the Creator has provided for every ani- 
mate creature that flies the heavens, walks 
the earth, or swims the sea. On every steam- 
er and in nearly every hotel a ''wine list'^ 
has been placed before me. But I have 
steadily adhered to beverages guiltless of 
alcohol, and have found that pure water — 
whether it were the Nile-water of Egypt, 
or the rain-water of Jerusalem, or the ac- 
que duct- water of Athens, or the water of 
every land from the Mediterranean to the 
Baltic, was perfectly adapted to my constitu- 
tion — and by-laws also. I am not alone in 
this testimony; for I had two fellow-travellers 
in the Orient who had adhered to their tee- 
totahsm in India as rigidly as they did in 
Palestine. But I did not discover that total- 
abstainers travel ''in regiments.'' 

In Egypt and throughout the Levant the 
conscientious Mussulmen obey the restrictions 
of the Koran and avoid the use of wine. 
Some of the looser sort break the rules of 



302 The Nile to Norway. 

the Prophet; a gentleman in Jaffa told me 
that there was an increasmg tendency there 
to tippling. In the main, the Moslems are 
abstinent. The Copts in Egypt frequently 
use ''arrack'' — a spirituous liquor distilled 
from grapes, or fermented rice or palm-juice, 
and at their evening meals often drink to ex- 
cess. The first town in the East which I found 
to be cursed with ubiquitous dram-shops and 
drenched in strong drink was Port Said. 
That is a sea -port, conglomerated of all 
nationalities, and is an exotic on Egyptian 
soil. 

In Palestine and Syria the people (who 
are not Mohammedans) — almost universally 
use the native wines, which are abundant, 
cheap, and contain but a small percentage 
of alcohol. Some of the poorer Jews in Je- 
rusalem, who are unable to purchase wine 
for the Passover, are in the habit of boiling 
raisins and extracting a simple unfermented 
drink which they use at the Paschal feast. 
They always ask a blessing on it as *' the 
fruit of the vine J ^ The mild drink thus made 



The Drink-Question. 303 

will not keep long, and it is not much used 
as a beverage. Several syrups are made 
from the grape, which are brought on the 
table as maple-syrup is in Vermont or mo- 
lasses on the breakfast-tables of boarding- 
schools. There is very little drunkenness in 
Palestine. Bishop Barclay told me that the 
only time at which the Jews in Jerusalem 
get exhilarated is at the Feast of Purim. 
Then it is regarded as a meritorious act to 
get so ''fuddled^' that a man does not know 
the difference between *'' blessed be Haman ! '' 
and ''cursed be Mordecai ! '^ 

At Ephesus, I saw a company of Grreeks 
and Syrians carousing in a dram-shop, and 
the Greeks throughout the Orient are some- 
times hard drinkers. After I reached Inns- 
pruck and began to encounter the social 
usages, !• soon saw that I was regarded with 
some astonishment because I did not, at the 
table, order either wine or beer. The con- 
sumption of beer in Austria, Germany, and 
Denmark, is almost as general as the use of 
cold-water in American farm-houses. I saw 



304 The Nile to Norway. 

only one person intoxicated, and that was in 
the streets of Prague, — where a well-dressed 
man was reehng on the sidewalk. But be- 
cause I observed no public exhibitions of 
drunkenness it does not follow that drunken- 
ness does not exsist in Germany. On the 
contrary, there is a great deal of intemper- 
ance among the Germans; and the enormous 
use of beer not only involves an enormous 
waste of money among the working classes, 
but also leads to the use of distilled liquors. 
I learn that last year a noteworthy debate 
touching this subject occurred in the German 
Parliament at Berlin. It was on a proposi- 
tion to tax the retailing of beer, wine, and 
stronger liquors. The proposition was made 
by the Government, and, as the Finance Min- 
ister said, not so much for the purpose of rais- 
ing revenue, as of restricting the sale of bever- 
ages, the excessive use of which was injuring 
the health and morals of the people, and 
creating amongst the most intelligent and 
thoughtful observers no little apprehension 
concerning the future prosperity of the State. 



The Drink-Question. 305 

In the German cities the beer-gardens are 
not only associated with a fearful desecration 
of the Sabbath, but in too many cases^ the 
beer-shop is the fruitful source of the worst 
forms of profligacy. A well-informed writer 
for Scribner^s Monthly declares that— 

**The cnrse of Berlin is its ten thousand beer and wine 
cellars, hidden away in subterranean retreats, where security 
from the public gaze is an inducement to a visit on the part 
of those who would hesitate to enter them if open to gen- 
eral view. Many of these are the retreats of the lowest 
species of vice and degradation, and the resorts of criminals in 
all stages of depravity. The uninitiated would neither find nor 
suspect the existence of half of them, and he who would study 
the subject worthily needs a trusty policeman as guide and 
protector. " 

As I went northward I found the popular 
beverages becoming more strongly alcohohc. 
Until about twenty-five years ago Sweden 
was cursed by a frightful amount of drunken- 
ness, especially among the lower classes. 
The most common Swedish liquor is called 
" Bran-vin'^ and is a powerful intoxicant dis- 
tilled from potatoes. The first step towards 
reform was the passage of a '^ Licensing act ^^ 
in 1855 J this act abolished domestic distilla- 



306 The Nile to Norway. 

tion, imposed heavy license-fees and allowed 
the parochial authorities or the town-councils 
to fix the number of liquor-shops. It even 
allowed them to prohibit tippling-houses en- 
tirely. The result of the passage of this law 
was to reduce the annual product of Bran- 
vin from 26,000,000 gallons to 6,900,000! 
Under the act, the trafl&c in ardent spirits 
was much restricted in many parishes, and 
was not licensed at all in several localities. 
Its chief results were seen in the rural dis- 
tricts. While this law has vastly curtailed 
the sale and use of intoxicants, yet in the 
city of Gothenburg — the chief sea-port — the 
drink-traffic went forward with scarcely any 
perceptible hindrance. The City Council ac- 
cordingly decided that drinking-houses should 
no longer be managed by private individuals 
for the sake of personal profit, but by a 
Company (or ^'Bolag^^), and that all the net 
profits of the sale of spirits should be paid 
over to the city treasury. A ^'Bolag'^ was 
organized in 1865, and a charter was grant- 
ed them by the Government. 



The Drink-Question. 307 

This ^ * Gothenburg system '^ of license is 
now, in full force, in several of the large 
towns of Sweden. Under this system the 
whole sale of liquor in a city is committed 
to a joint-stock company, who decide on the 
number of drinking-houses and pay the sal- 
aries of the venders. After a small dividend 
has been declared to the share-holders, all 
the remainder of the profits from the sales 
are paid into the city treasury. The num- 
ber of dram-shops under this method is 
greatly reduced; in Upsala, with a popula- 
tion of eighteen thousand, there are only 
seventeen. An effort is now being made by 
the friends of temperance to have the dram- 
shops closed on Saturday evenings, on holi- 
days, and on the whole of the Sabbath. 
They are only open now on Sunday for two 
or three hours. The most intelligent persons 
with whom I conversed generally state that 
the '' Gothenburg system '' works many good 
results. It limits the number of drinking- 
houses; it allows no inducement to the liquor- 
seller to sell for personal profit; it forbids 



308 The Nile to Norway. 

the sale of intoxicants to an intoxicated per- 
son, and forbids also any one to get drunk 
*'on the premises/' If there is to be any 
license at all, this is probably the best license 
system ever invented. Its cardinal defect 
is that it legalizes the dram-shop, and opens 
a doorway of deadly temptation. The best 
peoj)le in Sweden therefore, are now enlisted 
in moral efforts to persuade their country- 
men to abstain from strong drink entirely. 
Under the leadership of such devoted Chris- 
tians as Professor Truve, Rev. Mr. Lagergren, 
Col. Broady, and other of like spirit, the to- 
tal-abstinence reform is making rapid pro- 
gress. I found that in Upsala a single society 
of teetotalers numbered over seven hundred 
members. 

Two very palpable principles seem to pre- 
vail in regard to the use of alcoholic stimu- 
lants. The one is that the character of the 
popular beverages, varies according to the 
climate. In warm countries, such as Egypt, 
Palestine, Syria, and southern Italy, those 
beverages are of a milder character. As I 



The Drink-Question. 309 

went northward I found the potations of 
the people growing more intensely alco- 
holic. The thirst for intoxicants seems to 
go up as the thermometer goes down. Had 
I pursued my journeyings as far as Siberia 
I should have discovered that the native 
tribes are addicted to eating a peculiar 
fungus plant called ' ' muk - a - moor '^ which 
is a violent narcotic and which completely 
shatters the nervous system. Although the 
sale of this terrible intoxicant is prohibited 
by Russian law, yet so eager is the aj)pe- 
tite of the Siberians for it that they readily 
offer the most valuable furs to the Russian 
traders who will smuggle it into their 
possession. 

If the use of alcohohc drinks varies ac- 
cording to climate it also varies according 
to race. The Semitic and the Latin races 
are content with milder potations. The 
Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Celts 
have appetites for ^^ bottled lightning.'^ It 
is not a pleasant thing to say, but the most 
hideous drunkenness that I have yet en- 



310 The Nile to Norway. 

countered is to be found in Britain and in 
Ireland. London alone must contain more 
habitual drunkards than does all the native 
population of the Levant. This loathsome 
vice meets jou at every turn in the eastern 
and southern sections of the metropolis; it 
penetrates into the " West End/' and num- 
bers its victims in every tier of society. 
One of the most offensive features of Lon- 
don life is that strong drink is not only 
sold most commonly by women in the dram- 
shops, but that women are so widely the 
victims of the drink. Not only in the Strand 
but on many other thoroughfares I saw 
scores of females around the counters of 
the gin-palaces. Sometimes husbands and 
wives go in together for their dram. This 
terrible traffic is at its worst on Sabbath 
evenings ! When riding home from church, 
my friend Mr. Hall would frequently say 
to me '4et us count the gin-palaces that 
are open on this street/' and we would 
find a dozen within the distance of an hun- 
dred rods. All through the Lord's day 



The Drink-Question. 311 

hundreds of churches and chapels are opened 
to preach salvation by the Cross; at night 
ten thousand doorways of perdition are flung 
open to preach damnation by the dram. 
What is true of London is measurably true 
of all the large towns of England, Scotland, 
and Ireland. 

Within the last three or four years the 
indefatigable labor of the advocates of tem- 
perance are beginning to make some tangi- 
ble impression upon this monster evil. Four 
years ago the sale of ardent spirits and 
beer amounted to 115,000,000 pounds sterl- 
ing annually. It has been steadily reduced 
(in spite of increase of population) until last 
year it amounted to 106,000,000. Among 
the middle and higher classes, the practice 
of entire abstinence is making headway. 
Such influential men in the Church of Eng- 
land as Bishop Lightfoot (of Durham), the 
Bishop of Exeter, Canon Farrar, and Canon 
Basil Wilberforce, are throwing the weight 
of their powerful influence in favor of it. 
Dr. B. W. Richardson, by his able physio- 



312 The Nile to Norway. 

logical writings and addresses, is arousing 
the medical fraternity. Temperance hospi- 
tals have been established and are working 
successfully. Coffee-houses are being opened 
in all the towns as an antidote to the gin- 
palace. Sir Wilfred Lawson and his United 
Kingdom Alliance are pushing the agitation 
for ''Local option'^ with increasing vigor. 
The National Temperance League are flood- 
ing the kingdom with their volumes and 
tracts. Many of the most influential Dis- 
senting pulpits are becoming most pro- 
nounced in their advocacy of the temper- 
ance movement. And it would not be an 
act of justice to close this extended letter 
without saying that our countryman Mr. 
Joseph Cook has — during the past twelve- 
month — struck some powerful blows which 
have produced a deep impression through- 
out the kingdom. 



XXIX. 

EXCURSIONS IN ENGLAND, 

London, August 2. 

TT is impossible to chronicle all the pleas- 
-^ ant experiences of the past week, but I 
will attempt what Willis used to call a 
^^ hurry- graph'' of a few of them. On Tues- 
day I took a run down to Devonshire, which 
many regard as the garden of England. I 
halted at Salisbury for a look at the Cathe- 
dral, the chief' glory of which is the spire- — 
four hundred feet high. The Bishop's Pal- 
ace is a delicious piece of old architecture 
encased in greenery. A few miles north 
of Salisbury is Stonehenge; and beyond it 
stretch the Downs, over which Hannah 
More's ''Shepherd'' drove his flocks. That 
charming story ought to be revived into 
popularity. 

313 



314 The Nile to Norway. 



<jfr 



On entering Devonshire we passed through 
Axminster, a most beautiful town, but now 
producing only a small number of the car- 
pets, which have made the place so famous. 
Then came Honiton, equally famous for its 
laces, which are made by young women, by 
a slow manual process. Exeter, the capital 
of the county, stands in a region of en- 
chanting loveliness; just out of the town is 
Sir Stafford Northcote's mansion, and in the 
heart of the town is the Cathedral, six hun- 
dred years old. 

The building is rather long for its height, 
but the nave is so rich in branching tracery 
that to walk beneath the architectural foli- 
age is like a walk through a grove of Egyp- 
tian palms. On one side is the ^' Minstrel's 
Gallery, '^ the carved front of which represents 
twelve angels who are playing upon trum- 
pets, horns, and various musical instruments. 
That is a choir that ought never to give 
pastors or music -committees any trouble. 
The front of the Cathedral is very low, and 
thoroughly blackened by coal-smoke, and an- 



Excursions in England. 315 

tiquity; yet the whole front is covered by the 
''Grandison screen/^ a piece of stone work 
which is fashioned into columns, and niches, 
and multitudinous statues of saints, and kings 
and heroes of the faith. Up in the north 
transept is a remarkable astronomical clock, 
on which are inscribed the very suggestive 
words, ''Pereunt et imputantur.'^ It would 
have been music to the ears of the poet Gray 
to have heard the curfew-bell tolled each 
night from the ancient towers. The sounds 
are like echoes from the far-gone past. 

From Exeter I had a pleasant ride to 
Wells in Somersetshire; a farmer who sat 
by me pointing out the various mansions and 
telling me how many of them were chang- 
ing owners, and how large a purchase of 
land had lately been made by a rich Lon- 
doner who wears the rather uncommon name 
of ^^ Smith." As I entered the city of Wells, 
I was reminded of the old chorister who, 
pitch-pipe in hand, used to call out that 
word before he began a favorite tune much 
sung in the church of my boyhood. My 



316 The Nile to Norway. 

chief object in visiting the quiet httle city 
was to see its Cathedral — which was built 
five hundred years ago on the site of a 
church founded by King Ina in the year 704. 
There are two superb features of this Cathe- 
dral which are not surpassed anywhere in 
the kingdom. The one is its magnificent 
west front which is two hundred and thirty- 
five feet in length, and is divided into sev- 
eral distinct compartments by projecting but- 
tresses. All of these compartments and 
buttresses are swarming with statues which 
number, large and small, about six hundred. 
The object of these statues, it is said, is 
to represent the order of the subjects in the 
'^Te Deum.'^ The lower tier illustrates the 
line, "The glorious company of the Apostles 
praise Thee.'' The next tier represents, ''The 
goodly army of the Prophets praise Thee.'' 
Then comes the ''noble army of martyrs," 
and so on upward until the highest tiers 
close with a sculptured picture of the Resur- 
rection of the dead and the Day of Judg- 
ment. It is a grand conception of sacred art, 



Excursions IN England. 317 

and is carried out with the most elaborate 
and conscientious detail. I stood on the 
velvet greensward before the edifice, and 
read, as in a huge stone book, the history 
of human redemption by the gospel of the 
cross. 

The other superior feature of this cathedral 
is the choir. When I looked through its 
exquisitely Hght and dehcate Gothic arches 
at the gorgeous stained glass of the Lady 
Chapel behind it, the amazing beauty over- 
powered me. It was worthy to be placed 
alongside of the feats of delicacy in finish 
wrought by the Greek builders of the Erec- 
theum. From the Bishop of Wells, good 
Thomas Ken, came the famihar morning 
and evening hymns, with their matchless 
doxology — 

** Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 

How few of the millions who sing those hues, 
ever heard the name of their author ! It is 
a striking coincidence that the finest hymns 
in the English language should have been 



318 The Nile to Norway. 

composed in those southern counties that 
stretch along the Channel. Toplady wrote 
the ''Rock of Ages/^ and Charlotte Elliott her 
hymn ''Just as I am^^ in Devonshire. Henry 
Lyte the author of "Abide with me ^^ lived 
in the same county. Charles Wesley gave 
birth to "Jesus lover of my soul ^^ and 
Perronet to the hymn "All hail the power 
of Jesus' name/' in that same poetic belt 
of the south of England. Isaac Watts penned 
his first hymn at Southampton, opposite to the 
Isle of Wight. 

One of my pleasant excursions this week 
was to Kingston Hill, and Richmond Park 
on the Thames; under the oaks of this park 
the Queen gave a home to the veteran Earl 
Russell in his closing days. England takes 
good care of her old servants. She stows 
them away in various good quarters just as 
she moors the hulk of the famous flag-ship 
" Victory '^ in the quiet waters of Portsmouth 
harbor. She also treasures very carefully 
the autographs, the manuscripts and other 
relics of her renowned authors and heroes. 



Excursions in England. 319 

In the British Museum the other day I 
saw the ^^ Elegy in a Country Churchyard/' 
in the neat and dehcate hand of its author, 
Thomas Gray. Close by was a page of Lord 
Macaulay's History of England, a large fools- 
cap sheet written over in large, bold hand, 
and completely covered with erasures and 
interlineations. This shows that it was Ma- 
caulay's habit to write down rapidly whatever 
came into his mind; then he went over it 
with corrections and alterations. The same 
thing is observable in Dickens^s manuscript 
of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and 
Chuzzlewit — all of which are preserved entire 
in the South Kensington Museum. There is 
not one hne that is not blotched over with 
corrections. I read with intense interest an 
original letter of Robert Burns, in which he 
thanks Mrs. Dunlop, '' for your favorable 
opinion of my ' Tam o' Shanter.' '^ Little 
did the poor ploughman dream that after an 
hundred years the world would know Tam o' 
Shanter by heart. 

Among all the rare and precious curiosi- 



320 The Nile to Norway. 

ties in the two Museums, none delighted 
me more than two letters of Oliver Cromwell. 
They were almost entirely in Scripture lan- 
guage, and the spelling is almost as bad as 
Queen Elizabeth's. In the rough draft of 
her speech to Parliament good Queen Bess 
tells them that ^' the eeys of all lokers on 
have been blinded through too cessions.'' 
The woman who spelled in that style boasted 
of her scholastic attainments ! London is fast 
being robbed of its ancient structures. Tem- 
ple Bar is gone; Milton's and Shakespeare's 
houses are gone; and Surrey Chapel is soon 
to be pulled down. Yesterday I crossed the 
Thames to explore ''St. Saviour's Church, 
Southwark,'' which comes next to Westmin- 
ster Abbey in historic interest. In the Lady- 
chapel, Bloody Mary's brutal Bishop G-ar- 
diner condemned Protestants to death, and 
on the memorial windows are the names of 
Bishop Hooper, burned at Gloucester, and 
of John Rogers, burned at Smithfield. In 
one corner of the church John Gower, the 
contemporary poet with Chaucer, hes buriedj 



Excursions in England. 321 

and under the pavement sleep Philip Mas- 
singer and Edmond Shakespeare, the young- 
gest brother of the immortal dramatist. 
Quaint epitaphs abound. One brass plate 
records in pompous phrase the wonderful 
qualities of a maiden ten years old, who 
was ''none-such for piety and virtue, ^^ and 
who is now ''maid of honor to the King 
in Heaven!'' No other metal but hrass 
could contain such inflated nonsense as that. 
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre stood close by 
that ancient church, but has given place to 
a brewery. Chaucer's "Tabard Inn," was 
about half a mile away, and that has given 
place to a warehouse. London will soon 
be as modern as New York. 

Yesterday I hunted up one delightful bit 
of antiquity that is as yet untouched — and 
that is St. Giles' Church, Cripple-gate, near 
the Bank of England. It is a beautiful 
church, and in its green yard stands a Roman 
tower built nineteen centuries ago ! Under 
the floor of this dear old church lies "John 
Milton, author of Paradise LostJ^ I went 



322 The Nile to Norway. 

to the altar-rail, and knelt down with deep 
emotion, for I was on the spot where Ohver 
Cromwell knelt when he was married to his 
Huguenot wife. In the vestry, I read the 
record of his marriage, and of Milton's in- 
terment. This city is fairly peopled with 
statues. Sir Robert Peel's handsome figure 
is at the end of Cheapside, and in the open 
court near Westminster Abbey, and in the 
Abbey itself. They cannot pay too high 
honors to the king of parliamentarians and 
the honest statesman. Sir John Franklin has 
a touching memorial near Carlton House. 
King Billy the sailor has a statue too, al- 
though his place in history is scanty enough. 
One of the most spirited pieces of art is 
that superb figure of Richard the Lion- 
hearted,* who bestrides his bronze horse in 
front of the Victoria Tower at Wesminster 
as if he were a gallant Knight set for Her 
Majesty's defence. 

One thing surprises me; and that is that 

* A representation of this statue fronts the title-page of this 
volume. 



. Excursions in England. 323 

while London abounds in monuments to 
England's celebrities, it does not contain 
a single monument to the two greatest rulers 
England has had for three centuries — Oliver 
Cromwell and King William of Orange ! In 
the mean time stone enough has been piled 
up in various places in honor of good Prince 
Albert to build a church. 

During this week an International Conven- 
tion of Young Men's Christian Associations 
is holding its sessions at Exeter Hall. This 
famous old edifice in the Strand — whose 
walls have echoed to the eloquence of the 
foremost preachers, missionaries and refor- 
mers of this century — has lately been pur- 
chased by the London Y. M. C. A. Its 
Secretary, Mr. W. Hind Smith, is a powerful 
organizer — and his wife, whom I once knew 
as Miss Wilson of Sherwood Hall, is the most 
untiring female philanthropist in the city. 
We must come to England in order to learn 
systematic thoroughness in managing benev- 
olent operations. America excels in effer- 
vescent spurts, and dashes; John Bull beats 



324 The Nile to Norway. 

us in the long and steady pull. If there 
could be a combmation of American enthu- 
siasm with British thoroughness and hold- 
on-ativeness, we would have the ideal sys- 
tem of efficient Reforms. 

This Convention is well attended, and its 
sessions are spirited and profitable. Our 
country is represented by its two distin- 
guished workers — the Hon. William E. 
Dodge, who will speak at the public meet- 
ing to-morrow evening, and Mr. John Wana- 
maker of Philadelphia, who led the prayer- 
meeting on Saturday evening. Mr. McBurney 
of New York, and Rev. Dr. Newman of New 
York, are also present, with about twenty 
others. 

Last evening the Lord Mayor and Lady 
Mayoress gave a grand reception to the dele- 
gates in the Mansion House. The present 
Mayor, Hon. Mr. Mc Arthur, is a member of 
Parliament, a rich merchant, and a devout 
Methodist. At seven o'clock, a large com- 
pany of us found ourselves in the superb 
central hall of the Mansion House where His 



Excursions in England? 325 

Honor received us in official state. He wore 
his scarlet robes and gold chain; upon his right 
hand stood an officer attired in black robe and 
the traditional cap, and bearing an immense 
sword; on his left hand was a similar func- 
tionary bearing the huge gilded lace. To the 
Lord Mayor and his portly Mayoress we were 
each introduced; and in the company I ob- 
served the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Hon. 
Samuel Gurney, Bevan Braithwaite (the 
leader of the Orthodox Quakers, and one 
of the best men in England), Mr. Arthur 
Kinnaird^ Mr. Matheson, and other eminent 
Christian merchants and bankers. A pro- 
cession was formed, and we marched into 
the magnificent '' Egyptian ^^ Banquet Hall 
— one of the most gorgeous apartments in 
London, and looking like a quotation from 
Windsor Palace. It is lined with lofty gilded 
columns and statuary, and its frescoed ceil- 
ing is at least seventy feet from the floor. 
Upon a dais at the end of this palatial hall 
sat the Lord Mayor, and his five hundred 
guests were seated before him. The Earl 



326 The Nile to Norway. 

of Shaftesbury made a ringing speech, which 
was received with boisterous enthusiasm. 
Addresses were made by foreign delegates 
— the Hon. Mr. Dodge responding hand- 
somely for America. Mr. Russell Sturgis, 
of Boston, and Mr. George Williams the 
founder of the Association took a promi- 
nent part. Altogether it was a splendid af- 
fair, and we all went home concluding that our 
generous Christian host was indeed the Lord^s 
Mayor; for he is using his eminent station 
and influence directly for the glory of God. 

London, August 6. 

This is my last day in this colossal city, 
which always has such a fascination for me 
that I am loath to leave it. London is a 
volume of a thousand leaves; no man liv- 
mg has yet read every page. Yesterday I 
was in the neighborhood of the General 
Post-office in St. Martin's le Grand, and I 
threaded my way through several narrow 
streets into Nettleton Court. In ''No. 2" 
of that narrow court John "Wesley was con- 
verted; for he tells us that there he first 



Excursions in England. 327 

tasted of the love of God. In that little 
dmgy brick house — where I found a poor 
woman washing clothes — Methodism was 
born. It is not a very long walk from 
that obscure nook to City Road Chapel in 
which Wesley held his most frequent ser- 
vices, and beside which he now lies buried. 
I told the woman at the wash-tub that when 
the Ecumenical Council of Methodism comes 
off in September she might expect an in- 
undation of visitors. Quite sure I am that 
the American delegates will hunt out the 
spot, for our countrymen are keener on 
the scent for historical relics than any other 
class of visitors to England. On the Sab- 
baths they constitute a large element in the 
congregations at Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, 
and at Westminster Abbey. At the public 
meeting held in Exeter Hall by the "World's 
Convention of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations'' on Wednesday evening, many Amer- 
icans were present. The Hon. WiUiam E. 
Dodge spoke briefly; Dr. John Hall was in 
the audience, with President Magoun of 



328 The Nile to Norway. 

Iowa University, and several delegates from 
New York. When I introduced the name 
of our President into my address, it did 
our hearts good to see the audience rise 
up and cheer vociferously. ' The Earl of 
Shaftesbury, who presided, afterwards read 
a telegram from Mrs. Garfield, at which 
there was another shout. Herr Klug from 
Elberfeld, Germany, delivered an eloquent 
speech; but the hero of the evening was 
the veteran Lord Shaftesbury, whose ap- 
pearance always calls forth great enthusi- 
asm. He is over eighty years of age, but 
as erect as a Norway pine, and he has 
but few gray hairs on his honored head. 
It is owing to both climate and physical 
constitution— as well as to temperament — 
that Englishmen preserve their full vigor 
to such an extreme age. Lord Palmerston 
was once asked, ^^when is a man in his 
prime?'' and he drily replied — ^'oh, about 
seventy-nine; but I am past my prime, for 
I am just eighty.'' This English atmos- 
phere is very favorable to consecutive hard 



Excursions in England. 329 

work, both out doors and in. It is not 
subject to the violent extremes of the ch- 
mate in our Northern states — a chmate that 
has been wittily satirized as one in which 
''during the summer, butter may be sold 
by the pint and during the winter milk 
may be sold by the pound. '^ 

I spent a delightful evening this week at 
the house of Bevan Braithwaite, who is one 
of the most earnest warm-hearted Christians 
I have ever met. He practices law during 
the week, and preaches in his Quaker meet- 
ing-house on ''first day,'' and finds time to 
make himself one of the most profound Bible 
scholars in London. He brought out his Sep- 
tuagint and Codex Vaticanus, and entertained 
us with a most learned discussion of the mer- 
its and the demerits of the New Revision. 
After hearing his opinions and those of Mr. 
Spurgeon, I feel confident that the Revision 
will not be cordially and generally adopted 
in England. Friend Braithwaite is one of 
the directors of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, and for a layman, is a master of 



330 The Nile to Norway. 

biblical criticism. He feels as do many oth- 
ers, that it would have been prudent for the 
Revisers to have submitted their work to 
the outside public in a tentative way for free 
criticism, before they finally adopted it. For 
myself I have had but little opportunity to 
examine the Westminster Revision, and while 
I like it exceedingly, I believe that it would 
have been improved if the Revisers had called 
in thirty or forty cultivated Christian lay- 
men, and consulted their judgment on several 
points. God^s Word is also the people^s 
book. 

I am happy to learn that this Westminster 
version is received with so much favor in 
America, for whatever be its defects it is a 
vast improvement upon the much more de- 
fective Yersion of King Jameses translators. 

No city in the world can show such a band 
of Christian philanthropists, or such organi- 
zations of benevolence, as London. It needs 
them all, and tenfold more; for its wickedness 
is colossal. Every Sabbath evening ten thou- 
sand dram-shops are in full blast; the great 



Excursions in England. 331 

majority of the drink-sellers are young wo* 
men ! And among the crowds pomnng into 
these doorways of perdition, the women are 
almost as nmiierous as the men ! There are 
over forty thousand women who make a 
trade of their profligacy. In such thorough- 
fares as the Strand and around the ''Aqua- 
rium/' they swarm every evening in regi- 
ments. It almost makes even New York 
seem virtuous, to go through certain portions 
of this great British Babylon by gas-light. 
But against this immense tide of vice and 
poverty and debauchery, God's people are 
making head as bravely and steadily as they 
can. There are four hundred city mission- 
aries, scores of ''Bible-readers'' and lady vis- 
itors; Mr. Noble is working zealously among 
the degraded slums of Hoxton, Mr. Barnardo 
in another quarter, and the Mildmay Park 
missionaries in many quarters. They are all 
achieving blessed results; but the greatest 
single power in London is Charles H. Spur- 
geon, with his mighty pulpit and his staff 
of trained laborers. 



332 The Nile to Norway. 

One day I have spent at Canterbury. 
That is the origmal fountam-head of Enghsh 
civihzation, culture and Christianity. There 
St. Augustine preached to the Saxons, and 
Ansehn wielded his crosier. An university 
was planted there while Cambridge was still 
a fen, and Oxford was still a forest. My 
companions to the ancient town were Presi- 
dent Magoun of Iowa university and Rev. 
Julius Read; we went by the Southeastern 
Railway, through Chiselhurst and Tunbridge. 
By the roadside stands the old manor-house 
in which the beautiful Anne Boleyn was 
born, and whence she was called to her 
dizzy and dangerous elevation as the wife of 
a royal brute. 

Canterbury is very old, and is yet very 
well scoured up, so that its antiquity be- 
trays no rust or shabbiness. Through streets 
lined with small houses of one or two stories, 
we made our way to the venerable Cathe- 
dral. It is of immense length — five hundred 
and twenty feet — and some of the perspec- 
tives in the interior are of marvellous beauty. 



Excursions in England. 333 

A walk around its outer wall and cloisters 
was almost a quarter of a mile; it took us 
by some grand old Norman arches, and the 
cos'ey ivy-covered house in which Dean Stan- 
ley lived when he was Canon of Canterbury. 
There is a window also which he placed in 
one of the transepts as a memorial of his 
tour to the Holy Land. 

The Choir of the Cathedral is of great size 
and splendor. Just beyond it is the tomb 
of that royal model of true chivalry, Edward 
the Black Prince; above the effigy of the 
hero, are susjpended the shield he bore, and 
the coat he wore at Crecy and Poitiers. 
On the opposite side is the tomb of Henry 
the Fourth. But no king or warrior that 
sleeps beneath that Cathedral had to me a 
tithe of the interest which I have felt for the 
good Dean Alford who preached there for 
many years. There is a rich stained glass me- 
morial window which bears his fragrant name. 
But he is not buried within the Cathedral 
walls. He selected his own resting-place in 
the little crowded churchyard of St. Martin's/' 



334 The Nile to Norway. 

That is the oldest Church in England. It 
is not over thirty feet long, and its low 
square tower is wrapped around with ivy. 
On the stone floor of its chancel it is claimed 
that Augustine stood, twelve centuries ago! 
In the ancient Runic font by the door he 
baptized Ethelbert the Saxon; that church 
was old when William the Conqueror landed 
in Britain. In front of the church stand two 
venerable yew-trees; beneath one of these 
trees is a plain, simple tomb that bears the 
beloved name of ^^ Henry Alford.'^ On the 
end of the tomb is the celebrated inscription 
composed by the Dean himself — ^^Dever- 
sorium viatoris Hierosolymam proficientis,^' 
''The inn of a traveller bound to Jerusa- 
lem.'' Of all the hundreds of inscriptions 
that I have read during my wanderings, this 
one is the most exquisite; nor have I stood 
by the grave of a purer or a more leal- 
hearted minister of God. 



XXX. 

A RUN INTO WALES, 

Addphi Hotel, Liverpool^ Aug, 12. 

T LEFT London on Saturday, my last even- 
^ ing being passed under the roof of my 
friend, Hon. Arthur Kinnaird. Both he and 
his father, Lord Kinnaird, are among the 
^^ staff '^ of the Earl of Shaftesbury in con- 
ducting Christian campaigns of usefulness. 
No city in the world has a nobler body of 
practical philanthropists than London has in 
the persons of the two Kinnairds, Samuel 
Morley, WiUiam Hind Smith, Matthew Hod- 
der, John Taylor, T. B. Smithies, and their 
coadjutors. The Earl of Aberdeen is also be- 
coming prominent in evangehcal activities. 

My route hither was by the Midland Rail- 
way through the ravishing regions of Derby- 
shire — such as Matlock, Rowsley, and Darley- 

335 



336 The Nile to Norway. 

dale. Chats worth and Haddon Hall were 
out of sight from the tram, but we did not 
need them to complete the picture of luxuri- 
ant loveliness. If a visitor to England can 
explore only two counties, let him select 
Devonshire and Derbyshire. The crops are 
fxue this season, and the gold of the wheat- 
fields blends with the green of the meadows 
and the hedge-rows. For quite too many 
of my visits hitherward, I have been cheated 
out of a sight of Wales. So I came to Liver- 
pool in season for a brief run through the 
four northern counties of the old Principality. 
The mountains of Wales are picturesque, 
though not lofty enough to be sublime. But 
old Christopher North said that the most 
beautiful spots on this earth are the Welsh 
valleys. He must have had in his mind the 
valleys of Dolgelly and Llangollen, and the 
Cressford vale that lies close to Cheshire. 
Again and again I said to myself, ^^Well, 
this is the gem of all that I have seen yet ^^ ; 
but my casket of memory is full of gems, 
each one differing from the rest in some 



A Run into Wales. 337 

peculiar glory. At this season of the year 
North Wales is crowded with Londoners, witl 
whom it is a favorite summer resort. Canon 
Farrar is at Penraenmawr, recruiting from a 
year's work that had quite worn him down. 
If the suffrages of Americans could be counted, 
this brilliant and brave man would be appointed 
to the vacant Deanery of Westminster. The 
choice is supposed to lie between Dr. But- 
ler of Harrow, and the Bishop of Manches- 
ter. But it will be a long time ere there 
is another Dean Stanley. Before I left Lon- 
don, I went to pay a last visit to his grave in 
Henry the Seventh's Chapel; it was still cov- 
ered with wreaths and flowers from man}^ lov- 
ing hearts. He lived the life of a true man; he 
now sleeps the sweet sleep of a little child. 
But I am wandering from Wales. I found 
the northern coast lined with picturesque vil- 
lages, and cottages nestled in their green- 
eries. We caught glimpses of ancient Con- 
way Castle — out of whose ruined windows 
six centuries of history are peering — and of 
modern Penrhyn Castle, whose lordly owner 



338 The Nile to Norway. 

is also the owner of the largest slate-quarries 
in the country. I halted at Caernarvon to 
explore the famous Castle, which ranks next 
to Warwick in extent and interest. The first 
King Edward built it about 1284; the first 
Prince of Wales (the unhappy Edward 11. 
of England) was born there. 

It is a kingly pile, five hundred feet in 
length. A whole regiment could be en- 
camped in tents, within its ample walls. 
I climbed to the battlements of its '^ Eagle 
Tower,'' and got a wide view of the island 
of Anglesey, and the distant Menai Bridge, 
which the genius of Stephenson constructed 
forty years ago. The contrast between Caer- 
narvon Castle — with its frowning battlements, 
gloomy keeps and belligerent looking heads 
carved around the towers — and that noble 
highway for traffic and travel showed the 
essential difference between the thirteenth 
century and the nineteenth. The only oc- 
cupant of the stately castle, which once 
rang with the trumpets of armed knights, 
is a shrewd Welshman who sells photo- 



A Run into Wales. 339 

graphs and keeps a register for Yankee 
tourists to inscribe their names. 

From Caernarvon I went up to the vil- 
lage of Llanberris, under the shadow of old 
Snowdon. At the " Dolbadarn Inn'^ were 
parties of tourists who had just ascended 
this monarch of the Welsh mountains; oth- 
ers were arriving by four-horse coaches from 
Bettys-wy-Coed and Beddgelert and Festi- 
niog.* The most striking sight at Llanber- 
ris was the huge mountain of slate, up 
which the various quarries ascended like 
a colossal flight of stairs. Those quarries 
give employment to about 3,000 persons. 
Many of them come from a long distance 
on Monday morning, and return home on 
Saturday evening. If any one wishes to 
see the Welsh peasantry in their primitive 
dress and style of living, he must go off 
from the thoroughfares : for railways and 
fashionable travel have revolutionized the 
rural life of those districts that are now 
haunted by summer tourists. If any one 
also wishes to know whence came all the 



340 The Nile to Norway. 

Joneses and Robertses and Evanses so fa- 
miliar in America, let him go to Wales ; 
those three popular surnames are on half 
the signs in the streets. I also saw an 
abundance of Williams, with a sprinkling 
of Owens and Griffiths. 

I spent my first night at Port Madoc, a 
small village surrounded with bare mist- 
covered hills. The word ^' Temperance ^^ 
inscribed over the doors of two inns, and 
of several groceries was a cheering indica- 
tion of the spread of wholesome principles 
in the land of Christmas Evans and Howell 
Harris. There is not probably a country 
on the globe that contains a more God- 
fearing peasantry than Wales. The next 
morning I was in the train by six o'clock, 
and soon caught a glimpse of gray old 
Harlech Castle planted on a lofty steep. 
This is another of Edward's strongholds 
and was captured by the most famous of 
Welsh heroes, Owen Glendower. It is the 
theme of the most popular song of the 
Cambrians. Had time permitted I would 



A Run into Wales. 341 

fain have lingered for a week in the en- 
chanting vale of Dolgelly, feasting on its 
verdure that ^' a Shenstone might have en- 
vied/' To the Welshman in foreign lands, 
the recollection of such an exquisite spot 
as Dolgelly, with its silver-footed stream 
and the gentle outline of its hills and the 
sheen of its emerald grass must be a mem- 
ory to kindle the pangs of homesickness. 
A level monotonous prairie in Nebraska or 
a smoky iron-manufacturing town in Penn- 
sylvania must seem to him rather prosaic 
in the comparison. 

The most interesting spot to me was Bala, 
in the beautiful valley of the Dee. It is the 
site of a Calvinistic Theological School of fifty 
students under the presidency of Dr. Lewis 
Edwards. But it owes its chief fame to 
that apostolic man. Rev. Thomas Charles, 
the real originator of the British and For- 
eign Bible Society, and all kindred organi- 
zations. Mr. Charles was the pastor of a 
Calvinistic Methodist church in Bala, and 
very active in promoting religious schools 



342 The Nile to Norway. 

and study of the Scriptures. But Bibles 
were scarce and very dear. One day when 
he was questioning one of his Sunday-school 
girls, she said, '^The weather has been so 
bad this week that I could not get to see 
a Bible. '^ He found that the poor girl had 
to walk seven miles every week to get a 
look at a copy of God's Word! He deter- 
mined at once to go to London, and induce 
rich Christians there to organize a society 
to supply the Scriptures to the people of 
Wales. The thing was done, and it proved 
to be the seed-corn out of which grew the 
greatest Bible Society on the globe. 

About a mile from Bala, we passed the 
good man's grave, under a clump of jew- 
trees on the banks of a beautiful little lake. 
On reaching the railway station, we crossed 
the River Dee by the * ' M wn-wyl-y-Llyn 
Bridget' (I defy any one but a Welshman 
to pronounce that name, or the name of a 
village called Ynyscymbanarn !) Up in the 
towm I came upon the chapel in which Mr. 
Charles once preached — or rather the new 



A Run into Wales. 343 

edifice that takes its place. In front of the 
tasteful edifice is a fine statue of the man 
himself in pure white marble. Upon the 
pedestal is a bas-relief representing him dis- 
tributing Bibles among his neighbors. In 
the neighboring parsonage I had a pleasant 
interview with the Rev. Mr. Edwards — a son 
of the College President, and a grandson of 
Thomas Charles. It must be an inspiration 
to him to get a look at his noble ancestor's 
countenance in marble every time he walks 
past to his pulpit. 

From Bala I came to lovely Llangollen, 
and thence past Chirk and Cressford valleys 
to Chester and Liverpool. Here ends my 
happy, eventful, and instructive five months' 
pilgrimage. Since leaving home, I have trav- 
elled more than nine thousaiid miles. I have 
seen some of the most famous cities on the 
globe. Of these, the five that have inter- 
ested me most deeply have been Cairo, Je- 
rusalem, Athens, Stockholm, and London. 
This last named city is a kingdom of itself. 
It has been permitted me to study the pro- 



344 The Nile to Norway. 

gress of Christ^s cause and glorious Gospel, 
and to hold pleasant converse with many 
honored missionaries, ministers and philan- 
thropists. The goodness and mercy of God, 
and the kindness of many friends, have fol- 
lowed me at every step. But I can honestly 
say that after beholding all the Old World 
could show me, I care more to see the faces 
of that beloved flock who sent me on this 
trip to the Orient, than any object this side 
of the ocean. Towards them I set my face 
to-morrow, and then ''Point home my coun- 
try's flag of stars.'' When I see that ensign 
at the mast-head of the steamer Algeria, 
my heart will leap like the roe. America is 
never so welcome to an American as when 
he returns thither from a foreign land. And 
if I am permitted to set foot on its dear 
soil, I can chant the hymn of the Pilgrims 
to Plymouth Rock: 

''Who thoTiglit on England's fields of green, 
Nor wept that ocean rolled between; 
But praised the Lord — the Lord their Guide— 
Who brought them o'er the swelling tide.*' 



XXXI. 

HOMEWARD, 

Steamship ** Algeria " August 22. 

TV/TY summer passage homeward was as 
-^ ^ pleasant as a good ship, good weath- 
er, and good company can make it. On the 
evening before our departure I visited the , 
noble building of the Young Men's Christian 
Association — whose corner-stone was laid by 
our American Evangelist Mr. Moody. There 
is an extensive suite of apartments, such as 
reading-room, class-rooms, parlor, gymnasium, 
etc., all very attractive to the young men of 
Liverpool for whom it was reared. Looking 
into the lecture-hall, I found a social meeting 
of ladies and gentlemen with Mr. Alexander 
Guthrie (a son of the celebrated Edinburgh 
orator) in the chair. In the course of an 



346 The Nile to Norway. 

off-hand address I took occasion to urge the 
greater development of the laity in the spir- 
itual work of the churches. In the English 
and Scotch churches the private members 
are not called out into various activities as 
much as they are in our American congrega- 
tions. For example, it is the custom with 
us to commit the weekly devotional meetings 
to the management of the lay-officers — the 
elders, or deacons, or class-leaders or other 
office-bearers — and the meetings are open 
for every member of the church to take part 
in the services, if they desire. But in Britain 
these weekly meetings are too much monop- 
olized by the pastors. The result is that 
the ministers are overworked, the spiritual 
gifts of the church-members are not devel- 
oped, and one great element of interest and 
profit disappears from the meetings.^ The 
social gatherings of a Christian Church ought 
to have the unrestrained freedom of a fam- 
ily. How preposterous it would seem if 
at a Christmas-dinner the *^ paterfamilias'^ 
should either monopolize the conversation 



Homeward. 347 

or else allow each child to utter a syllable 
by special permission. Our American pray- 
er-meetings are not faultless, but they are 
free from one very serious fault of the 
mid-week services of many of the English 
churches. 

Two evenings previous to my sailing I 
visited Southport at the invitation of a dear 
friend who was once an active member of 
my Brookl}^ church. Southport is an at- 
tractive suburb of Liverpool, with forty thou- 
sand residents, many of them doing business 
in the great city. During the evening I 
preached in the ^'West End Congregational 
Church '^ to an audience composed of various 
denominations. The edifice stood on a beau- 
tiful plat of verdure, surrounded by shrubbery 
and bright flower-beds. We have something 
to learn from our English kinsfolk in the 
matter of adorning the grounds around their 
sanctuaries; it is not only the ivy upon the 
walls, but the well-trimmed grass, and flow- 
ers beside the walls that make many a house 
of God so picturesque in its settings. While 



348 The Nile to Norway. 

at Liverpool I was pained to learn that 
the Rev. Dr. Maclaren the brilliant Baptist 
preacher of Manchester is now laid aside, 
by ill health, from his pulpit. Among all 
the volumes of discourses that have come 
over to us lately in America none have ex- 
celled his in fresh suggestiveness of thought 
or felicity of style. They possess many of 
the rare merits of Frederick W. Robertson 
without any of Robertson's idiosyncracies in 
theology. 

When conversing with my fellow-passen- 
gers I find that their Sabbath experiences 
have often resembled my own. Over much 
of the Continent the only opportunity for 
Americans to hear the gospel in their own 
tongue is afforded by the various chapels 
which have been opened by the churches 
of England or Scotland. Outside of Paris, 
these are commonly very dry services. At 
Dresden, for example, I went to a chapel 
where the minister conducted the service in 
a most lifeless way — his voice being about 
as audible as the faint squeak of a mouse 



Homeward. 349 

in the wall. At the close the congregation 
sang ^^ Jerusalem the golden ^^ with hearti- 
ness, and that was really the only satisfaction 
which the otherwise inanimate service af- 
forded me. It reminded me of the stranger 
who was bluntly asked by the minister, " Well, 
what did you think of my preaching this 
morning?'^ and the ingenuous reply was, "I 
thought you gave us two good psalms.'^ If 
it were not for uniting with fellow-Christians 
in divine worship and listening to God^s 
Word either read or sung, one might almost 
as well abide with his Bible in the quiet 
of his lodging-room. Why is it that these 
chapel-services are so often a perfunctory 
formality and that such meagre diet is af- 
forded to travellers who become especially 
hungry for a good sermon while in a strange 
land ? 

Among the pleasant company on board of 
the Algeria is Professor Thorold Rogers of 
Oxford and the Member of Parliament for 
the borough of Southwark. He is a brilliant 
converser as well as an able political econo- 



350 The Nile to Norway. 

mist; during our civil war he warmly es- 
poused the side of Union and Emancipation. 
Perhaps he enjoys the generous fare on 
board all the more from his having been 
kept on ''Irish stew'' for the last three 
months in Parliament. The English Church 
is represented by Canon Prichard, and by 
the Rev. James McCormick the portly and 
genial Vicar of Kings ton-on-HuU. Mr. M. 
tells me that no two men in the Established 
Church rank higher for the best qualities of 
head and heart than the present Archbishops 
of Canterbury and York. Those two emi- 
nent sees have seldom been so ably filled, or 
with men more staunch in their devotion to 
sound doctrine. I was sorry that during my 
sojourn in London I failed to hear Dr. Ma- 
gee the eloquent Bishop of Peterborough who 
is famous both for his impulsive oratory and 
his Irish humor. When I made the attempt 
at Westminster Abbey, the crowd were 
blockading the doorways an half hour before 
the time of service, and thousands, like my- 
self, went away, unable to gain admission. 



Homeward. 351 

Many stories are current of the Bishop's 
Hibernian pleasantries. The Archbishop of 
Canterbury (Dr. Tait) once said to him, 
''Bishop Magee, I fancy that I am also of 
Irish lineage, and that my family may date 
back to the days of Brian Boroimhe.'^ The 
Bishop of Peterborough waggishly replied — 
'' Well, I never heard that we had any Taits 
in Ireland, but we have plenty of taters^ 

Of the preachers in the Established Church 
none are more widely known than Canon 
Farrar of Westminster, and Canon Liddon 
of St. Paul's. Dr. Farrar attracts great 
crowds on every Sabbath that he preaches 
in the Abbey — ;. Americans always con- 
tributing 'their full share to the throng. 
He is a tall, manly intellectual-looking per- 
sonage in the pulpit and speaks with much 
earnestness. His unsatisfactory utterances 
on Future Retribution have excited some 
prejudice among the Low Church party, and 
he is considered as rather too radical by the 
Tory High Church party. But his superb 
volumes — the Life of Christ, and the Life of 



352 The Nile to Norway. 

St. Paul — and his fearless assaults upon the 
drinking-usages, of England have won for 
hhn the enthusiastic admiration of tens of 
thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. 
He is a large-hearted and lovable man, 
with a prodigious capacity for hard work. 
The rising -man in London among the dis- 
tinctively ^*Low Church '^ is Rev. W. Boyd 
Carpenter, who preaches in the neighborhood 
of Hyde Park. Dr. Edward Bickersteth, so 
well known by his ^^ Yesterday, To-day and 
Forever '' has a parish on Hampstead Hill. 
The Low Church are a minority in the 
Church of England, but on the bench of 
Bishops they are represented by several men 
of fervent piety, and eminent culture. The 
influence of such prelates as Thomson, Era- 
ser, Tait, Lightfoot EUicott and Ryle ^Hells'' 
most effectively for evangelical truth. The 
Presbyterian pulpit in London is most ably 
manned by such men as Dr. Oswald Dykes 
(the successor of Dr. James Hamilton) Dr. 
Donald Eraser, Dr. Edmunds, and Dr. Sin- 
clair Patterson. The Orthodox Quakers in 



Homeward. 353 

England are to be weighed rather than 
counted; although few in numbers they ac- 
complish, in their quiet way, no small 
amount of solid good. 

Some of my readers may wonder why 
the pastor of a Presbyterian flock has not 
turned his footsteps towards either Switzer- 
land or Scotland. But I have paid several 
visits to those countries in former years; 
and during my present tour, I had deter- 
mined to seek out only those localities with 
which (excepting London) I was not already 
familiar. The brief inspection I have made 
of several lands has confirmed some pre- 
vious opinions, but has led me to revise 
others quite materially. Travel dispels some 
illusions, and discovers unexpected beauties; 
there were places in the East which I had 
thought of as verdant Arcadias which proved 
to be but barren rocks or inhospitable moun- 
tains. The best portions of Palestine are 
better than I expected to find them; its 
worst portions are desolate beyond all con- 
ception. Over the near future of that land, 



354 The Nile to Norway. 

so tenderly dear to all Christian hearts, hangs 
an unhfted mystery. The prospects of both 
Egypt and Syria are brightening under the 
steady introduction of Occidental ideas. In 
the development of those Arabic-speaking 
nations, the American college and the mis- 
sion-presses of Bey rout are to play an im- 
portant part. Mohammedanism is not the 
inert and moribund system which we in 
America so generally regard it. On the 
contrary it holds its own in Asia and is 
aggressive in Africa. Only on European 
soil does it show signs of decay. As it 
sprung from the powerful brain of one man, 
so, in the Providence of God, one or more 
men may arise within its domain who may 
do unto Islam what Luther did unto Ro- 
manism in the heart of Europe. 

The Greeks impressed me as being the 
rising race in the Levant. Greece as a 
war-like power is not formidable, but Greek 
merchants are growing rich by commerce 
and erelong will make Athens one of the 
most brilliant cities on the Mediterranean 



Homeward. 355 

Turkey when seen close at hand is no less 
detestable than when seen at a distance. 
The sooner that the ^'sick man'^ is carried 
across the Bosphorus, the sooner will Bul- 
garia advance to her rightful position and 
the sooner will disorderly Albania become a 
habitable country. All through the Orient 
— yes, and all through Europe the perpet- 
ual eye-sore is the ubiquitous soldier. In 
his various uniforms, white, scarlet, or blue, 
he. is everywhere. Except in their modern 
equipments these colossal standing armies 
seem like monstrous relics of the dark ages. 
Certainly in our time the sword does not 
shape as if it were turning into a plough- 
share. Whatever were my impressions of 
various countries, one thing is very clear, 
and that is that the American Republic is 
making a prodigious impression upon the 
older continents. It is not merely the com- 
ing nation; it has come! The great battle- 
field of the next century hes between Ply- 
mouth Rock and San Francisco. If the 
Devil gets America, the progress of hu- 



356 The Nile to Norway. 

manity goes back more than ten degrees 
on the dial-plate. If the Lord Jesus Christ 
gets America, then all the sooner will the 
Millennial dawning break. It is not a mat- 
ter for empty boasting, but it is a matter 
of momentous responsibility to be an Ameri- 
can citizen and to bear even the humblest 
part in shaping its moral destiny. 



Our delightful voyage draws to its close, 
and the atmosphere takes on a brighter hue. 
The leaden clouds have been left behind us; 
the fog- whistle has ceased to disturb our 
slumbers, and to-day we have the fore- 
tokens of home in a sapphire sky and a 
smiling sea. To-morrow morning the cap- 
tain promises that we may pasture our 
eyes on the verdure of Staten Island. Then 
farewell to the Bible-lands that I have left 
far beyond these waves — and hail to the 
home and hearts around that church-spire 
which glitters in the morning sun ! How 



Homeward. 357 



sweetly natural was the prayer of that ab- 
sent shepherd who was yearnmg to meet 
his folk — 

'"S^fjat I mag tome unto gou bjitfj jog, bg 
tlje Ijjill of <3oti, anU mag, tosetJ)er ixiiti) gou. 



530 BROAD^WAY, NEW "XORK, 

October, 1880. 



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H 94 89 



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